U.S. National Interagency Fire Center Wildfire Update for the Week Ending 29th June 2023

The U.S. National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) is reporting that as of Thursday (6/29/23), nationally, 16 large wildfire have burned 83,397 acres in five states. Four large new wildfires have been reported over the past 7 days. Nationally, since January 1^st, 2023, 22,052 wildfires have burned 636,031 acres across the U.S. Currently the National Preparedness is at a level 2 out of 5.

The National Interagency Coordination Center (NICC) located at the NIFC reports that since May 8, 2023, the U.S. has mobilized a total of 1,362 personnel via the CIFFC/National Interagency Fire Center agreement to Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec and the CIFFC, which includes: fire suppression crews (1,038 personnel), 91 individual overhead, 92 smokejumpers and 8 spotters, and 11 incident management teams (120 personnel).

The number of large new fires or emergency responses as of 6/22/23 was four. The number of active large fires (the total does not include individual fires within complexes) stands at 16. Currently there are 83,397 acres involved in active fires. The total number of wildfires fires contained stands at 2. The states currently reporting large wildfires are Arizona and Colorado with 5 each, followed by New Mexico with 4, and 1 wildfire currently burning in Texas and Washington. 

The NIFC offers these statistics:

• Between 1/1/23 through 6/29/23 – 23,712 wildfires have been reported and they have burned 673,824 acres.
• Between 1/1/22 through 6/22/23 – 16,478 wildfires had been reported and they had burned 3,922,641 acres.

The 10-year average – (2013 – 2022) year to date is 26,684 wildfires which had burned 1,916,909 acres. The current wildfire season remains substantially below the 10-year average, but the NIFC continues to warn that abnormally high temperatures, low humidity levels, with pop up thunderstorms during the coming weeks will provide suitable fuel for increased wildfire danger.