An odd burning smell had some Long Islanders worried Wednesday, and officials say it may have come all the way from New Jersey.

Calls came into News 12 Long Island from people in both Suffolk and Nassau counties describing it as a burning rubber smell.

?It stunk. It smelled like a fire,? says Lisa Friedrich, of East Meadow.

Gerald Granger, of Hempstead, says, ?It was like a rubber smell, like something burning.? Nassau's Office of Emergency Management says the smell likely came from a raging fire that broke out in a house Tuesday night in Jersey City. News 12 Long Island meteorologist Bill Korbel says a phenomenon known as inversion can cause the smoke to get trapped between a layer of warm and cooler air.