Firefighters in New York said Sunday that a successful voluntary evacuation overnight helped them protect about 165 homes from a wildfire near the New Jersey border. However, New York City’s fire department has taken the first-of-its-kind step of creating a brush fire task force to respond to what officials are calling a historic increase in brush fires occurring throughout the five boroughs,

Windy conditions renewed a wildfire that escaped a containment line and prompted emergency officials to enact a voluntary evacuation plan for a small number of houses in a community near the New York–New Jersey border on Saturday.