Massachusetts
Where are fires burning in Massachusetts? See map of where fire are burning
Fire in Blue Hills Reservation in Milton, Massachusetts
Dedham Firefighters Local 1735 crews battle the Blue Hills fire in Milton on Monday, Nov. 18. On Tuesday, the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) closed parts of the reservation to allow fire crews to work.
Dedham Firefighters Local 1735 via Storyful
The brush fires continue to burn in Massachusetts.
A major brush fire erupted at Blue Hills Reservation on Monday night, and crews continued to battle the blaze Tuesday.
In Braintree, a brush fire was reported in the woods near Skyline Drive on Monday.
“Fire will continue to smolder deep underground until we have a soaking rain,” states the Braintree Fire Department’s Instagram page.
On top of the major brush fires this week, the alerts for fires kept coming in consistently from Nov. 19-20. Using Dataminr, there were 10 notifications reported in Massachusetts by noon on Nov. 20 and 14 fires reported on Nov. 19.
See map of where fires are burning in MA
The National Weather Service is continuing to warn residents that the state is at high risk for fires, issuing a special advisory on Wednesday.
“The combination of prolonged dry weather and low relative humidities will contribute to elevated fire weather concerns Wednesday across Massachusetts. Obey fire bans, keep vehicles off dry grass and use extra caution if handling any potential ignition sources,” the agency said.
Brush fires/fire alerts today, Nov. 20
These alerts come from Dataminr.
- Brush fire burns on 0 block of Mulberry St. in Groveland
- Fire reported on 10 block of Overland St. Southbridge
- Butternut Fire burns at 1,100 acres on East Mountain Rd. in Great Barrington
- Fire reported on Great Neck Rd. South, Mashpee
- Fire reported on 110 block of Townsend St. Worcester
- Fire reported on Western Ave. Lynn
- Fire reported on 200 block of Walnut Plain Rd. Rochester
- Fire reported on 70 block of Wales St. Taunton
- Brush fire prompts emergency response near Donald E Ross Elementary School on 20 block of Hayward St. in Braintree
- Fire reported on Oakmont St. Webster
Brush fires/fires alerts on Nov. 19
- Fire reported on 900 block of South St. Southbridge
- Fire reported at intersection of Essex Street and Hampshire St. Lawrence
- Fire reported on Methuen St. Lowell
- Fire reported on 0 block of Shrewsbury St. Worcester
- Fire reported on Azalea Rd. Winchester
- Fire reported on Sycamore St. Westfield
- Fire reported on 0 block of Wakefield Ave. Saugus
- Fire reported on Rockland St. Abington
- Fire reported on 300 block of Cherry St. Newton
- Fire reported on 20 block of Virginia St. Dorchester
- Fire reported on 200 block of Rockland St. Hanover
- Three-alarm brush fire burns on 230 block of Topsfield Rd. in Wenham
- Fire reported on 10 block of Colonial Ave. Lowell
- Brush fire burns at Cedar Glen Golf Course on 60 block of Water St. in Saugus
Is this a bad season for brush fires in Massachusetts?
Yes.
The Carver Fire Department reported on Facebook that the average number of November brush fires in Massachusetts is 21.
“So far for November 2024 we are at 292 with over 700 acres burned” for the state, the department noted.
State fire officials report that there were 175 wildfires that continued to be an issue across Massachusetts earlier this month on Nov. 9.
Mass.gov stated that there were 203 brush fires in Massachusetts during the month of October, which is an increase of about 1,200% over the average. Typically, there are only about 15 brush fires in October.
How bad is the drought in Massachusetts?
As of this week, the U.S. Drought Monitor recently showed that dry conditions in Massachusetts keep getting worse.
That’s because the state really hasn’t seen any significant rain since September, with precipitation totals in October being low.
The Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs declared a Level 3 – Critical Drought for the central and northeast regions parts of Massachusetts late last week.
The U.S. Drought Monitor currently classifies just over 66% of the state as being in a severe drought covering most of the Boston area, North shore, Central Massachusetts and Western Massachusetts. Other parts of the state are considered to be in a moderate drought, while the Cape and Islands are currently classified as abnormally dry.
Is there any rain on the way? If so, will it help?
The National Weather Service stated that a “slow-moving frontal system” will bring overcast skies and rain Thursday into Friday, “which could mix with wet snow at locations above 1,500 feet elevation.”
Meteorologist Candice Hrencecin of the National Weather Service branch in Norton told USA Today Network on Tuesday, Nov. 19, that “about an inch of rain” can be expected this Thursday into Friday.
But after Thursday, the weather is supposed to dry up again, she added.
Regarding whether the forecasted rain would stop the drought, Hrencecin said, “Definitely not,” but she added it would help quench any ongoing brush fires.
SIMSBURY, Conn. (WTNH) — A Massachusetts woman was arrested Wednesday and charged with DUI after a crash in Simsbury, according to police.
The crash happened at around 2:15 p.m. on Hartford Avenue and Elm Street. Police responded to reports that one of the operators of the vehicles was unconscious, later becoming conscious.
Upon arrival, police found that operator, who was identified as 39-year-old Allison Beu of Southwick, Massachusetts, outside of her vehicle and interacting with the other involved parties.
The two occupants in the other vehicle were not transported to the hospital.
Beu was charged with DUI and failure to drive in proper lane.
BOSTON (WWLP) – Following the shooting at Brown University, claiming the lives of two students and injuring nine others, Governor Healey is joining calls for anyone with information to contact authorities.
Police have not yet made any arrests in connection with the shooting, but they have released footage of a person of interest, calling on the public for help.
“At this time, we just have to encourage anyone in the public who may know something, see something, to immediately contact law enforcement,” said Healey.
Governor Healey says the Massachusetts State Police are in Rhode Island to assist with the investigation. The governor also spoke to mounting fear on college campuses, as the number of mass shootings in the United States exceeds the number of days so far in the year.
“In speaking with many of them, I know that they are taking all measures to ensure the safety of students and faculty, and certainly as a state we will do everything that we can to support those efforts,” said Governor Healey.
Local to western Massachusetts, UMass Amherst told 22News about their campus safety plans, which include adding emergency preparedness to student orientation and hosting optional active threat training for students, staff, and faculty.
The FBI is offering an award of up to $50,000 leading to an arrest and conviction. Anyone who thinks they may have information is encouraged to call the Providence Police.
Local News Headlines
WWLP-22News, an NBC affiliate, began broadcasting in March 1953 to provide local news, network, syndicated, and local programming to western Massachusetts. Download the 22News Plus app on your TV to watch live-streaming newscasts and video on demand.
Massachusetts
This week’s jobs report was messy, but it shows cracks in the economy as 2026 looms – The Boston Globe
“We anticipated that once the government reopened there would be a few months of noisy data, and we would not get a real sense of where the jobs market is until early 2026. That is exactly what we got,” Joseph Brusuelas, chief economist at corporate advisory firm RSM, wrote in a blog post.
Despite potential statistical distortions from the shutdown, the report underscored that private employers remained stuck in low-fire, low-hire mode in October and November, while unemployment reached the highest rate in four years. Wage growth has stalled.
The Federal Reserve cut interest rates last week, with most officials saying they were more worried about the job market falling apart than inflation heating up. Tuesday’s payroll numbers show their concerns weren’t unfounded:
- The private sector added an average of 60,500 jobs in the past two months, extending a mostly anemic run of hiring, while the federal workforce declined by 168,000 as DOGE-related deferred resignations took effect.
- The jobless rate crept up to 4.6 percent in November from 4.4 percent in September. (The Labor Department didn’t tally unemployment in October due to the 43-day shutdown.)
- The number of people working part time because of economic conditions increased by more than 1 million, or 24 percent, over the past year.
“The labor market is showing growing fragility as firms grapple with uneven demand, elevated costs, [profit] margin pressure and persistent uncertainty,” economists Gregory Daco and Lydia Boussour said in note.
Here are some job trends I’ll be watching as we move into the new year.
Just a few sectors are in hiring mode.
The economy is vulnerable to a downturn when job growth is limited to a few sectors.
Health care and social assistance accounted for most of the new jobs in November, with a smaller gain in construction.
The economically sensitive manufacturing and transportation-warehousing industries lost jobs, as did information and finance, two largely white-collar sectors that are important employers in Massachusetts. (State-level data for November will be published later this month.)
Layoffs are low but will that last?
Employers are moving cautiously as they assess the impact of tariffs on their businesses, the direction of consumer spending, and whether artificial intelligence might allow them to operate with fewer workers.
Because the slowdown in hiring has yet to turn into a wave of firing, unemployment is relatively low by historical standards even after recent increases.
But there are concerning signs.
- The unemployment rate among Black workers climbed to 8.3 percent last month from 6.4 percent a year earlier even as white unemployment was little changed. Black workers are often hit first when hiring slows or layoffs begin.
- Similarly, the jobless rate for workers without a high school diploma has risen to 6.8 percent from 6 percent over the past year, and unemployment among 20-24 year olds is at its highest level (excluding the COVID shock) since 2015, the tail end of the long “jobless recovery” that followed the Great Recession.
Slack is building in the labor market.
The supply of workers is growing — surprising some economists who expected a decline amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown and aggressive deportation campaign.
With hiring on the decline, many people are idle or not working as many hours as they would like.
The U-6 unemployment rate — a measure of labor-market slack that counts not only the officially unemployed, but also discouraged workers who’ve stopped looking and people stuck in part-time jobs who want full-time work — jumped to 8.7 percent in November from 8 percent in September. That’s the highest rate since early 2017 (excluding the COVID era).
How does the Fed react?
Last week, Fed chair Jerome Powell said the central bank’s quarter-point cut, plus two others since September, should be enough to shore up hiring while allowing inflation to resume falling toward officials’ 2 percent target.
Most Fed watchers don’t think the latest jobs report alters that view — for now — and are forecasting just two more rate cuts in 2026.
“The report contains enough softness to justify prior rate cuts, but it offers little support for significantly deeper easing ahead,” Kevin O’Neil at Brandywine Global, told Bloomberg.
Final thought
Massachusetts, which has been shedding jobs this year, seems to be leading the way for the rest of the country.
Call me cautiously pessimistic: Things will get worse before they get better.
Larry Edelman can be reached at larry.edelman@globe.com.
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