US National Interagency Fire Center Wildfire Update as of July 22nd

The US National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) reported that as of Monday, July 22nd, 66 large active wildfires are being managed and have burned 1,125,770 acres. Fire managers are using full suppression strategies on 61 of these fires.

Many wildfires in the Northwest area continue to have active-to-extreme fire behavior, with evacuation orders in effect for 11 fires. Evacuation orders are also in effect for several fires in California and the Great Basin.

Nearly 22,000 wildland firefighters are assigned to wildfires nationwide, including 20 complex and 6 Type 1 incident management teams, 530 crews, 1,310 engines, numerous aviation resources, and four Modular Airborne Fire Fighting Systems. The National Wildfire Preparedness Level has been raised to a 5 out of 5.

The Great Basin Coordination Center’s predictive services staff have issued three fuels and fire behavior advisories for Nevada, Southern Idaho, and Utah and Arizona Strip. There is also a fuels and fire behavior advisory in effect for California.

Latest Statistics

As of Monday, there 9 new large fires and in total there are 61 active large wildfires that have burned 787,729 acres in 8 states. Oregon reports 20 wildfires, California 12, Arizona 8, while New Mexico and Washington State each report 5. Montana and Utah are each reporting 4 wildfires, and Idaho reports 3. The total number of wildfires fires contained stands at 4.

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

• Year-to-date through July 22nd, 26,240 wildfires were reported, and they have burned 3,447,182 acres.
• During the same period last year, 28,331 wildfires were reported, and they had burned 839,325 acres.
• The 10-year average (2014–23) for the same period is 32,087 wildfires and 3,142,458 acres burned. The above-average number of acres is partially due to the wildfires in Texas in late February.