BRICK, NJ — New Jersey’s governor has declared a drought warning. Black Hawk helicopters collected water from a lake to dump it on a burning forest in New York state. A Manhattan park caught fire. And authorities in two states on Wednesday revealed criminal charges against people accused of starting some of the wildfires that have ravaged the northeastern United States in recent weeks.

The measures came as conditions in some northeastern states are the driest in nearly 120 years, as many wildfires continue to burn in places that haven’t seen significant rain since August . Meanwhile, dry conditions from coast to coast were contributing to the spread of wildfires, particularly in Southern California.

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy’s drought declaration asked people to take voluntary conservation measures, such as taking shorter showers, turning off the faucet while brushing their teeth, and waiting until the dishwasher is full to make it work. But it did not impose mandatory restrictions on water use, which would be included in a drought emergency, the highest alert the government can impose.

New Jersey is not yet at the point where communities are at risk of running out of water for drinking or fighting fires. And the state wants to prevent things from getting to that point.

“Please take this seriously,” Murphy said. “We have a very dry winter ahead of us. »

Dry weather has caused a wave of bush and forest fires in a part of the country that rarely experiences fires at this level.

Fire crews continued their efforts to contain a wildfire in a forest on the New Jersey-New York border that burned approximately 5,000 acres (7.8 square miles) in both states.

No homes were damaged, but Greg McLaughlin, an administrator with the New Jersey Forest Fire Department, said the rugged terrain of the hills, coupled with few road access points, made it difficult to fight the fire from the ground. Water-spanning helicopters were used in both states. And New York firefighters took advantage of the change in wind direction Wednesday to start a line of controlled fires to burn brush and leaves that could serve as fuel.

About 30 miles away in New York, a brush fire broke out in a park on the northern tip of Manhattan, sending smoke across the Big Apple. The city’s firefighters have responded to a record number of bushfires over the past two weeks.

“Due to a significant lack of rainfall, the threat of rapidly spreading bushfires fueled by dry vegetation and windy conditions poses a real threat to our members and our city,” said the fire commissioner, Robert S. Tucker, in a statement.

On Wednesday evening, police in the Philadelphia suburb of Evesham Township said they charged a juvenile with deliberately starting an Oct. 30 fire that burned less than a tenth of a square mile. The youth, whose age has not been released, was arrested on November 7 and taken to a juvenile detention center.

On Long Island, New York, a 20-year-old volunteer firefighter was accused of intentionally starting a brush fire Tuesday that ended up damaging a parked car, Suffolk County police said in a news release .

Dry conditions from coast to coast have contributed to the spread of wildfires.

Nationwide, California has made good progress against a major wildfire in Ventura County, northwest of Los Angeles, that broke out a week ago and quickly exploded due to drought. Santa Ana Winds. THE mountain fire was 60% contained on Wednesday.

The 83 square kilometer fire forced thousands of residents to flee and destroyed more than 215 structures, mostly homes, and damaged at least 210.

The fires in the Northeast have not caused major evacuations, but a Connecticut firefighter died fighting a wildfire last month and the blaze on the New York-New Jersey border. cost his life of an 18-year-old New York State parks employee who was helping firefighters last weekend.

Dry conditions in the northeastern United States are a growing concern, not only for firefighting efforts, but also for the continued availability of drinking water.

Two major New Jersey reservoirs were at 51% and 45% capacity Wednesday, enough to keep the taps flowing, but low enough to raise concerns about what could happen with additional weeks or months of light precipitation. A river that provides an additional source of drinking water was at 14% of normal.

September and October were the driest two-month periods on record in New Jersey. Since August, the state has received 2 inches (5 cm) of rain when it should have received 0.3 meters. No significant precipitation was expected in the forecast, officials said.

New York City issued a drought watch last week. Mayor Eric Adams urged residents to take shorter showers, fix dripping faucets and conserve water.

Just 0.01 inch (0.02 centimeters) of rain fell last month in the city’s Central Park, where October normally brings about 4.4 inches (11.2 centimeters) of precipitation. New York says it was the driest October in more than 150 years.

Massachusetts declared a drought Tuesday after more than a month of decreasing precipitation.

The ground is also very dry, McLaughlin added. This makes wildfires even more dangerous as they can burn downward, through dry soil and root systems, and last for months.

On a soil dryness scale in which 800 is the highest possible score, New Jersey ranks at 748, meaning the soil is dry nearly 8 inches (20 centimeters) below the surface. This level had never been reached before, McLaughlin said.

A wildfire that started July 4 in New Jersey’s Wharton State Forest by someone using illegal fireworks has long been considered contained. But it has been smoldering underground for four months and could reignite on the surface, McLaughlin said.

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Associated Press writers Christopher Weber in Los Angeles and Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire contributed to this report.