POMPTON LAKES, N.J. — Fire crews battled small wildfires Monday across the Northeast U.S., including a blaze in New York and New Jersey that killed a parks employee over the weekend and postponed Veterans Day plans.

A quarter-inch of rain fell overnight from Sunday into Monday in a forest area straddling the border of the two states, giving a slight respite to firefighters.

The fire is one of several burning on the East Coast amid a lack of much rainfall since September. An employee of the New York State Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation Department who was assisting firefighting crews died Saturday when he was hit by a falling tree.

The East Coast fires burned as larger wildfires raged in California and Nevada.

Firefighters continued making progress against a wildfire in Ventura County, northwest of Los Angeles, that broke out Wednesday and quickly exploded in size because of dry, warm and gusty Santa Ana winds.

The Mountain Fire in Ventura County prompted thousands of residents to flee their homes and was 36% contained Monday. The fire remains around 32 square miles and has destroyed more than 170 structures, most of them homes, officials said. The cause is under investigation.

In neighboring Nevada, authorities ordered the evacuation of hundreds of homes southwest of Reno and closed the main highway to Lake Tahoe after a wind-whipped wildfire erupted Monday and spread quickly through mountainside vegetation.

About 3,000 people were told to leave, said Adam Mayberry, spokesperson for the Truckee Meadows Fire Protection District.

Across the country on the New Jersey-New York border, crews worked to contain the 4.7-square-mile fire dubbed the Jennings Creek Wildfire, although no evacuations had been ordered, according to the New Jersey Forest Fire Service.

Officials said overnight rain was far less than what was needed to extinguish numerous brush fires that have broken out around New Jersey since the middle of last week. At least four other fires in central to northern New Jersey were mostly or completely contained Monday.