US National Interagency Fire Center Wildfire Update as of August 26th

The US National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) reported that as of Monday, August 26th, 54 large active wildfires are being managed with full suppression strategies nationwide. Current wildfires have burned 2,061,572 acres. The National Wildfire Preparedness Level has been reduced to a 4 out of 5.

There are approximately 18,000 wildland firefighters and support personnel currently assigned to wildfires, including 18 complex and one Type 1 incident management teams, 418 crews, 705 engines, 95 helicopters, and one Modular Airborne Fire Fighting System.

In addition, there are 60 fireline management personnel from Australia and New Zealand assigned to support large fires in the Northwest Area. There are also 245 soldiers from the 14th Brigade Engineer Battalion and the 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment based out of Joint Base Lewis McChord (JBLM) deployed in support of wildland fire operations on the Boise National Forest. NIMO (Team 2) is assigned to support the military contingent

Daily Statistics

As of Monday, there 3 large new fires. In total, there are 54 active large wildfires that have burned 2,061,572 acres in 10 states. Idaho has 13 wildfires; Oregon has 12; Montana has 10; Washington has 7; Wyoming has 6; California has 5; Utah has 3; and New Mexico, Nevada, and South Dakota have 1 each. There are 3 fires contained.

The updated year-to-date comparison is as follows:

• Year-to-date through August 26th, 32,382 wildfires were reported, and they have burned 6,118,069 acres.
• During the same period last year, 38,398 wildfires were reported, and they had burned 1,933,277 acres.
• The 10-year average (2014–23) for the same period is 40,418 wildfires and 4,791,567 acres burned.

The NIFC notes that current reporting from source data for year-to-date figures appears to be underreporting fire acreage in some geographic areas, affecting the overall national statistics. Given the very high tempo and scale of current fire activity, there will be delays in reconciling, especially from areas with large fires and dynamic fire activity. Adjustments may occur as the accuracy of fire locations, mapping, and final fire reporting is reconciled.