Officials said an 18-year-old employee of the New York State parks system died on Saturday while battling a wildfire in Orange County, one of several blazes in the New York metro area to break out recently amid drought conditions.

The employee, Dariel Vasquez, was killed while fighting a fire in Sterling Forest in Greenwood Lake, N.Y., the New York State Police said in a statement late Saturday.

Steve Neuhaus, the Orange County executive, said that Mr. Vasquez was helping to clear trees and shrubs, which are fuel for a fire, from a wooded area when a tree fell and hit him.

Mr. Vasquez, who was from Rockland County, had started working for the parks system in May, Mr. Neuhaus said. Mr. Vasquez’s job was not firefighting, but he had been brought in to help with the response.

Mr. Vasquez planned to begin college in January and had been the captain of the baseball team at Ramapo High School, according to an online fund-raiser that his family organized.

In a statement, Mr. Vasquez’s family said they would remember him as a “true hero,” and noted that he had died while protecting his community.

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