Active Wildfires in the United States

The data on this page is fetched directly from the NIFC (National Interagency Fire Center) WFIGS public ArcGIS feature service, which aggregates active wildfire incident reports from federal, state, tribal, and local agencies. NIFC updates the source data approximately every 5 minutes; this page refreshes every 30 minutes.

Acres burned is the current total area inside the active fire perimeter, as reported to NIFC by the incident management team. The value typically updates daily after the morning incident briefing. For very new fires the value may be reported as "discovery acres" (the initial estimate) until a more accurate perimeter mapping is completed.

Containment is the percentage of the fire perimeter that has a completed control line — a fuel break that fire managers believe will hold the fire from spreading further in that direction. 100% containment does not mean the fire is out; active flames may still be burning within the perimeter for weeks afterward. The fire is officially "controlled" when active spread has stopped, and "out" when there is no detectable heat remaining.

Newly reported incidents often have only a name, location, and discovery date in the first few hours. Acreage, containment, and cause are added as incident management teams complete their initial assessment. Very small fires (under 100 acres) may never be fully populated in the NIFC database because they are typically suppressed before formal incident management is established.

No. This page filters the NIFC feed to show only incidents categorized as wildfires ("WF"). Prescribed burns ("RX"), false alarms, and other non-wildfire incident types are excluded.