2 charged with setting some Northeast wildfires amid New Jersey drought warning and blazes out West

Associated Press

BRICK, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey’s governor declared a drought warning. Black Hawk helicopters scooped water from a lake to dump on a forest fire burning in New York state. And across the country, firefighters were making good progress Wednesday battling a major wildfire in a county northwest of Los Angeles. Meanwhile, New Jersey and New York state officials have made public criminal charges against two people separately accused of setting some of the wildfires that have plagued the Northeast in recent weeks. The region is undergoing some of its driest conditions ub decades. And that has prompted a drought warning from New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and calls for voluntary water conservation efforts.