U.S. National Interagency Fire Center Wildfire Update – as of Monday 14 th October 2024

The U.S. National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) provided a wildfire update on Monday (10-14-24). As of this morning, wildland fire activity continues in 11 states where 41 large active wildfires have burned 1,040,896 acres. Nearly 11,000 wildland firefighters and support personnel are assigned to incidents, including 19 complex incident management teams, 182 crews, 550 engines, and 104 helicopters.  The National Fire Preparedness Levels has been raised to a Level 5 out of 5.

In addition, the wildland fire community in the U.S. is a world-class emergency response force, trained not just to fight massive wildfires, but also to support response efforts in any kind of disaster. Federal employees are working beside state, local and Tribal partners to provide resources and assistance for Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton. Currently, complex incident management teams (IMTs), saw modules, interagency hotshot crews, and others are assisting efforts in North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and Florida.

As of Monday, there were 2 large new fires being reported, and in total there are 41 active large wildfires that have burned 1,040,896 acres in 11 states. Idaho is reporting the most wildfires with 13, followed by Oregon with 9. California and Montana are reporting 4 wildfires each. Arizona, Oklahoma, Utah and Wyoming are each reporting 2 wildfires. While Florida, Missouri, and Nevada are each reporting 1 wildfire. Currently 1 out of the 41 wildfires being reported is contained.

The NIFC is providing these comparative statistics:

• Between 1-1-24 through 10-14-24 – 41,979 wildfires were reported, and they have burned 7,833,615 acres.
• Between 1-1-23 through 10-14-23 – 47,535 wildfires were reported, and they had burned 2,523,000 acres.

The NIFC reports the 10-year average – (2014 – 2023) is 48,330 wildfires, and the number of acres consumed by wildfires during the 10-year period was 6,282,7533. While the number of wildfires remains below the 10-year average, the current number of acres burned is well above the 10-year average.