US National Interagency Fire Center Wildfire Update for the Week Ending August 4th

The US National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) is reporting that as of Friday, August 4th, 77 large wildfires have burned 449,194 acres in a dozen states. Seventeen large new wildfires were reported during the week. Currently more than 9,700 wildland firefighters and support personnel have been deployed to incidents across the country. The National Preparedness Level remains at a 3 out of 5.

The National Interagency Coordination Center located at the NIFC reports that since May 8th, the US has mobilized a total of 2,258 personnel to Canada including: 73 fire suppression crews (1,511 personnel), 217 individual overhead, 119 smokejumpers and 11 smokejumper spotters, 2 helicopters with 29 rappellers, 20 engines (100 personnel), and 24 incident management teams (282 personnel).

The number of large new fires or emergency responses as of August 4th was 17. The number of active large fires stands at 77 (not including individual fires within complexes). The total number of wildfires fires contained currently stands at 4. The states reporting large fires are Alaska with 20; Montana with 12; New Mexico with 11; Arizona with 10; Idaho with 7; California with 5; Oregon with 4; Texas with 3; Washington with 2; and Arkansas, Colorado, and Louisiana with 1 each.

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

• From 1/1/23 through 8/4/23, 31,382 wildfires have been reported and they have burned 1,257,389 acres.
• From 1/1/22 through 8/4/22, 18,879 wildfires had been reported and they had burned 5,823,729 acres.
• The 10-year average (2013–22) for the same period is 35,011 wildfires and 3,897,571 acres burned.