The blaze in the park, at the northern tip of Manhattan, followed brush fires that burned in Brooklyn, the Bronx and New Jersey over the past week.

A massive brush fire exacerbated by the city’s ongoing drought destroyed about four acres of Manhattan’s Inwood Hill Park, FDNY officials said Thursday. The raging blaze, which began about 3 p.m. Wednesday, tore its way through about four acres of parkland near W. 218 St. as upper Manhattan was covered in thick grey smoke for most of the day.