US Wildfire Watch

The Canyon

Wáhatoya Canyon · Spanish Peaks, CO

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official sources · auto-refresh

Check current wildfire and fire-weather conditions near any location in the US. Search a place, use your location, or tap a 🏔 Colorado landmark pin (Pikes Peak, Maroon Bells, Bishop's Castle, and more). Data comes live from official sources — NWS · NIFC · NASA FIRMS · EPA AirNow.

⚠️ Not an official emergency source. For evacuation orders and official emergency information, follow your local Sheriff / Office of Emergency Management and InciWeb. Do not rely on this page for life-safety decisions.

Tap ⛶ (top-left) for full screen — great on mobile. Rings: 5 mi · 15 mi · 30 mi from the selected point. Use the layers control (top-right) to toggle 🏔 CO landmarks, fire perimeters, hotspots, 🌬 wind, 💨 smoke, Red Flag zones, AQ stations, and the basemap. Fire shapes & points are real reported geometry. Wind arrows point the way fires are being pushed (NOAA NDFD forecast, nearest hour); smoke plumes are NOAA HMS satellite analysis. AQ stations show the nearest EPA AirNow monitor.

Active incidents 0

Showing fires on map · threat tier is for The Canyon

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Air quality

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National wildfire picture

The map above is your location. Here's all 50 states — how much is burning right now, and how every fire season since 1983 compares.

—acres burning now

—active wildfires

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Which states are burning now live · acres on active fires

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Tap a state to filter the fires below. Live sum of acres on active wildfire incidents, by state of origin. Source: NIFC / IRWIN via Esri Living Atlas.

How this year's fires have grown active fires · 2026

0–33% contained 34–66% 67–99% mostly contained

◉ dot & line size = acres burned. Y-axis:

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Each line is one active wildfire — from the day it was discovered (left edge) to today. Height = acres burned so far; the steeper the line, the faster it's growing (acres per day). Color = how contained it is now; lines end “open” because these fires are still burning. NIFC publishes each fire's current size, not a day-by-day history, so growth is drawn as a straight line to today — a simplification, not a measured curve.

Today vs. the record books largest U.S. wildfires · 2000–now

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How today stacks up. The bars rank the largest U.S. wildfires since 2000 by final acres. This year's active fires are highlighted and slotted in live by their current size — so you can see whether we're in record territory. Use the state filter above to compare within one state. Cross-era note: historical fires are final mapped totals; this year's are still-growing live estimates, so the comparison is approximate. “Complex” = several fires that merged. Source: NIFC / Cal Fire / state agencies.

Acres burned per year full-season total · 1983–2026

full-season total 2026 so far (large fires) projected year-end

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U.S. wildfires per year all sizes · 1983–2025

No 2026 bar here: a comparable all-sizes year-to-date fire count isn't published mid-season (the live incident list tracks only large/active fires, not the tens of thousands of small ones).

Two different measures. “Acres burning now” is a live snapshot of active incidents; “acres burned per year” is the cumulative full-season total. “Wildfires” counts every reported wildland fire — most are small, not just the large named ones. Source: NIFC — Total Wildland Fires and Acres (national interagency figures). Report-only.

The drought behind the risk reservoir level · since 2000

Low water means a drier landscape and less to fight fire with. The West's two largest reservoirs have fallen for two decades — here's how far.

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Monthly elevation (feet above sea level). Dashed lines = full pool (top) and dead pool (bottom). Source: U.S. Bureau of Reclamation — RISE.

Federal firefighting cost, by year suppression only · 1985–2023

What the federal government spends fighting fire each year (Forest Service + DOI, suppression only) — a proxy for the resources thrown at each season. A consistent year-by-year count of wildland firefighters isn't published, so we chart spending, not headcount. Source: NIFC — Federal Firefighting Costs (Suppression Only). Nominal dollars; table lags ~1–2 years.