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Dangerous wildfires raged across the East and West Coasts on Monday, with firefighters in New York and New Jersey working to contain a deadly blaze fueled by an ongoing, historic drought – while strong winds in Southern California sparked a devastating blaze in Ventura County could fuel.

The National Weather Service issued red flag warnings Tuesday for southeastern New York, areas along the New Jersey-New York border where the Jennings Creek Fire is burning, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. The warnings indicate an increased risk of forest fires due to strong winds and dry air, prompting caution among residents.

The Jennings Creek Fire has scorched about 3,500 acres in parts of New York and New Jersey and is 20% contained, the New Jersey Forest Fire Service said Monday evening. Although rain on Sunday slowed the fire’s progress, dry conditions and high winds are expected to persist throughout the week, the department’s Assistant Division Fire Marshal Christopher Franek said during a news conference Monday.

While no civilian injuries have been reported, an 18-year-old member of the Wildland Fire Crew was killed while responding to the blaze over the weekend, officials said Sunday. Dariel Vasquez died Saturday afternoon when a tree fell in the fire area.

Vasquez recently graduated from Ramapo High School, where he was a member of the school’s varsity baseball team, the East Ramapo Titans.

Anthony Vasquez, 50, described his late second cousin as “a wonderful young man” and “a family man.” And his death “almost broke us apart,” Vasquez said.

“We are very close, our family. He grew into a community service family where we are about helping each other and helping the community,” Vasquez told CNN.

Dariel Vasquez was a leader among his peers, a teenager who enjoyed playing baseball and “worked hard at his craft,” he said. According to his cousin, the 18-year-old wanted to become an electrician and planned to study electrical engineering at university in January.

On the other side of the country, strong winds are expected to return to Southern California this week. It raises fears that the Mountain Fire, which has damaged and destroyed dozens of homes in Ventura County, could spread after calmer weekend weather allowed firefighters to contain the blaze by up to 36%.

Special weather statements have also been issued for eastern Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey, where humidity is slightly higher.

Wind warnings are in effect through Tuesday for parts of Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, where gusts of 50 to 60 mph are possible even as a cold front brings a slight chance of rain.

The mountain fire has led to thousands of evacuation orders, with some families already returning to find their homes damaged or burned down.

According to Cal Fire, the flames had burned about 20,600 acres as of Sunday evening. Since the fire broke out on Wednesday, 192 structures have been destroyed and another 82 damaged. Six injuries were reported, including five civilians and one firefighter, officials said. The cause of the fire is still under investigation, but officials are investigating whether power lines may have contributed.

While California is used to raging wildfires, New York hasn’t had a fire season like this year since 2002, according to Jeremy Oldroyd, a forest ranger with the state’s Environmental Conservation Department. Nearly 600 wildfires have burned nearly 7,000 acres in New Jersey and New York since Oct. 1, officials said.

Most of the fires occurred in New Jersey, where the state’s Forest Fire Service has responded to 537 wildfires. That’s almost 500 more than the same period last year – and the flames have claimed about 4,500 hectares, Donnelly said.

“New Jersey has never seen anything this dry since we started keeping records, which is one of the obstacles we face,” Donnelly said. “We have fires in New Jersey that have been burning since July 5, if that’s any indication of how dry it is and what we’re dealing with.”

Following reports of the wildfire and a separate two-alarm wildfire in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park on Friday evening, New York City Mayor Eric Adams has banned grilling in the city’s parks. According to a statement from the mayor’s office, the city has seen 120 wildfires in the past 10 days. Adams warned residents to take fire precautions and steps to conserve water during the drought.

As officials in California assess the damage caused by the Mountain Fire, Ventura County Fire Chief Dustin Gardner said he is “grateful for the number of lives saved and the fact that no fatalities were reported.”

“I know we have suffered extensive damage, but thousands of homes have been saved and hundreds of lives have been saved. I know we have made mistakes, but we will learn from those mistakes,” Gardner said during a community meeting Sunday evening.

Gardner pointed out that the number of residents in the fire-affected area – approximately 30,000, of which 7,000 are non-native English speakers – made evacuating the area a challenge.

“We were fortunate that the fire started at 9 a.m., in daylight,” said Ventura County Sheriff Jim Fryhoff. “Imagine this at 9 o’clock at night, where it’s already dark. Then you lose power in an area that is already dark, and then smoke comes on top. This had the chance to get so exponentially worse.”

Agriculture officials assessing the impact of the wildfires on farmland growing avocados, citrus fruits and berries estimated damage at more than $6 million. Korinne Bell, the province’s agriculture commissioner, said Monday that officials have completed only a quarter of their investigation into the damage and expect total losses to rise.

As the situation evolves, residents are urged to stay informed and be prepared for changing circumstances.

CNN’s Robert Shackelford, Eric Levenson, Taylor Romine and Kia Fatahi contributed to this report.