Every dot below is a current US wildfire incident from the federal NIFC feed - sized by acres, colored by containment, prescribed burns in grey. Pick a state, set a size floor, or sort by your distance. It all loads straight into your browser: no app, no account.
Live Wildfire Map - Active US Fire Incidents
The map above shows every active US wildfire the federal interagency system (NIFC WFIGS) is currently reporting. Each dot is one incident: its size tracks the fire's acreage, its color tracks how contained the fire is. The list under the map ranks the same fires largest-first with acres, percent contained, county, and discovery date - loaded directly in your browser, no app, no account.
How to read the map
The map is a coordinate plot of incident locations on a longitude and latitude grid - deliberately not a street or satellite basemap, so nothing external loads and nothing about you is sent anywhere. Red dots are fires with little or no containment, orange and yellow mean crews have a partial control line, green means the fire is 90 percent contained or better. Grey dots are prescribed burns - planned, controlled fires that land managers set on purpose. Hover any dot to see the fire's name, county, acreage, and containment without leaving the map.
Filter to the fires you care about
The state menu narrows the map and the list to one state, and it shows a live incident count next to each state so you can see at a glance where activity is concentrated. The size menu hides the small stuff - show only fires over 100, 1,000, or 10,000 acres. By default you see wildfires only; the checkbox adds prescribed burns to the same view. If you want to know what is burning near you, the distance button asks for your location once, then re-sorts the list nearest-first with a distance column in kilometers and miles. The permission is optional, used only in this tab, and never stored.
Where the data comes from - and its limits
The incident list is the National Interagency Fire Center's WFIGS feed, the same reporting system US federal and state fire agencies file into. It covers US incidents only, and entries appear on the agencies' reporting cadence - a new fire can take hours to show up. That makes this page the right tool for situational awareness and the wrong tool for evacuation decisions: if a fire is near you, follow local officials, not any map. The Refresh button re-pulls the latest list whenever you need it.
Check smoke and weather alongside
A fire's location is only part of the picture. For smoke, check the live air quality checker - wildfire smoke moves hundreds of miles past the perimeter. For watches and warnings tied to fire weather (wind shifts, red flag conditions), the storm and weather alerts tracker reads the National Weather Service feed. The three pages cover three distinct questions: where the fires are, what the air is like, and what the weather service is warning about.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where does the fire data come from?
The page loads the current incident list from NIFC WFIGS - the National Interagency Fire Center's open reporting system that US federal and state fire agencies file into. The feed is public and keyless, and it loads directly in your browser with no account or app install.
How current is the map?
Incidents appear on the agencies' reporting cadence, so a brand-new fire can take hours to show up and acreage figures update as crews re-survey. Hit Refresh to pull the latest list. This page is for situational awareness - it is not an emergency-alert or evacuation source; always follow local officials.
Does it show fires outside the US?
No. WFIGS is the US interagency system, so only US incidents appear - including Alaska and Hawaii. Fires in other countries are not in this feed.
What does "percent contained" mean?
It measures how much of the fire's edge has a completed control line around it. 100 percent contained means fully surrounded - not extinguished; hot spots can keep burning inside the line for weeks. The page's built-in explainer also decodes the NWCG size classes A through G.
What are the grey dots (prescribed burns)?
Prescribed burns are planned, controlled fires that land managers set on purpose to reduce fuel. They are hidden by default so the map shows wildfires only; one checkbox adds them to the same view, drawn in grey so they never look like emergencies.
Does the page track my location?
Only if you press the distance button, and only then does the browser ask for permission. Your location is used once, in this tab, to sort the list nearest-first with a distance column in km and miles. It is never stored and never sent anywhere - and the map works fully without it.
Why is there no street or satellite background?
The map is a coordinate plot on a longitude and latitude grid, on purpose: no basemap tiles means nothing external loads, the page stays fast, and hovering a dot still gives you the fire's name, county, size, and containment. For "how far from me", use the distance sort instead of eyeballing roads.