Smoke drifted into the area between 7 and 8 a.m. Sunday and the smell of fire was so strong that some residents and business owners inspected their buildings for signs of fire.

The state issued a smoke advisory for much of the eastern half of the state, including the Capital Region, on Sunday. Locally, the air quality index ranged from 101 to 115 fine particles per million on Sunday. The advisory was in effect until midnight. Much of the smoke in Columbia and Greene counties cleared late Sunday afternoon as rain began to fall in the area.

Plumes of smoke from wildfires drifted north and east Sunday morning, leading to poor air quality conditions for people with sensitive respiratory conditions, young children and older adults, officials said.

Some of the smoke was from a roughly 2,500-acre wildfire along the New York-New Jersey border in Sterling Forest State Park that was not contained until Monday and killed an 18-year-old park employee years. This site is about 50 miles away from New York City.

About 60 miles to the north, another heavily smoky wildfire, called the Whitehouse Fire in the town of Denning, had consumed 600 acres of Catskill Park’s Sundown Wild Forest by Sunday, straddling the border of Ulster and Sullivan counties. Almost 200 firefighters from 20 agencies intervened on the scene.

Ulster County Executive Jen Metzger announced Monday morning on Facebook that the Whitehouse fire was 90 percent contained by Sunday evening.

“The affected area, including the established control line, is approximately 600 acres,” Metzger said. “With the help of last night’s rain, we expect significant progress towards 100% containment today (Monday). We have 139 personnel from 18 fire departments deployed today to continue this work.”

Additional support in fighting the Whitehouse fire was provided by three county governments, including Greene County, several state agencies and New York City, which owns large tracts of land for the water supply.

“We want to again express our gratitude to the NYS DEC Forestry and the many local volunteer firefighters from Ulster, Sullivan, Delaware and Greene counties who worked on the ground to suppress this fire, as well as the NYC Department of Environmental Protection and NYS Police Aviation for the bucket drops on Saturday and Sunday and all the agencies involved in this coordinated effort,” Metzger added. “We also want to thank the many local individuals and businesses who have donated food for our firefighters.”

Columbia County Emergency Management Director David Harrison Jr. said Sunday he hoped rain forecast for Sunday night could thin the smoke. By Monday, the smoke was gone.

Harrison did not expect the state to see the same volume of surface-level smoke that blanketed the region for several days in early 2023 as a result of Canada’s boreal fires. This event affected tens of millions of people on the East Coast.

“(The current fires) aren’t as big as the fires in Canada, so hopefully if we get some rain, that will help us down there and keep us at least moderate or lower,” Harrison said.

With lots of dry leaves on the ground and little rainfall in the Hudson Valley, the area is primed for wildfires, according to Harrison.

“If you go out to some of these yards, the wind is just blowing the leaves all over the place, and that’s because there’s just moisture to pack them in and hold them down,” Harrison said.

The emergency management director noted the county had a tight call Friday after a downed power line sparked a brush fire in Austerlitz. It only spanned 2 acres by the time it was suppressed by first responders.

“It could be anything,” he said. “I hope nobody starts a fire now, because I’d say the whole county is at risk.”

Columbia County Board of Supervisors Chairman Matthew Murell issued a 30-day burn ban on Nov. 5 in an effort to prevent wildfires from materializing. That came about a week after New Lebanon enacted its own burn ban in response to four brush fires in the rural town.

Across the river, the Catskill Park towns of Lexington and Hunter also put burn bans in place. On the other hand, Greene County Legislature Speaker Patrick Linger currently has no plans to restrict burning countywide, given the differences in rainfall distribution in the county since August.

At this point, Linger said, people should know not to light a fire on a windy day.

“It should be a common sense thing,” Linger said. “I think if they follow the DEC regulations where people monitor their fires, it can be done safely under the right conditions to get to the point where I have to issue an emergency declaration.”

Linger did not rule out the possibility of issuing a countywide order in the future if conditions worsen.