WELLSVILLE, N.Y. (WKBW) — 35 volunteer firefighters in Allegany County just returned from a 21-hour workday fighting wildfires in Orange County, New York.
Volunteers came from the departments in Allentown, Clarksville, Cuba, New Hudson, Richburg, Wellsville and Willing.
Those Western New York first responders made the 4.5-hour drive to Orange County, New York to help fight the wildfires that have spread through 5,000 acres of New York and New Jersey forest.
Both Allentown Fire Chief Greg Taylor and Wellsville Fire Capt. Billy Day made the trip to help. Both of these veteran firefighters admitted that the scene was something they had never seen before.
“A shock coming from somebody from such a small place, like Allegany County. We don’t see that around here,” Taylor said. “You are inundated with smoke around pretty much the entire area over there.”
“We are not used to large wildfires of that nature, so we really leaned on the forest rangers to assist us with that. They did a great job explaining what our task was and what we needed to accomplish for the day,” Day said.
The firefighters completed a 12-hour shift at the site. They were tasked with clearing brush and creating a fire line to help stop the spread of the fire.
As you can see from Allentown Volunteer Fire Company Inc.'s Facebook posts, much of this work was done on mountainsides.
