US National Interagency Fire Center Wildfire Update for the Week Ending June 16th

The US National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) is reporting that as of Friday, June 16th, 10 large wildfires have burned 80,000 acres in seven states. During the week, one large new wildfire was reported in North Carolina and another in Oregon.

Nationally, since January 1st, 21,305 wildfires have burned 644,918 acres across the US. The National Preparedness Level is currently at a level 2 out of 5.

Since May 8th, the US has mobilized a total of 823 personnel via the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Center (CIFFC)/NIFC agreement to Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, and the CIFFC, which includes: 36 fire suppression crews (677 personnel), 62 individual overhead, and six incident management teams (84 personnel).

The number of large new fires or emergency responses as of June 16th was 2. The number of active large fires (not including individual fires within complexes) stands at 10. The total number of contained wildfires stands at 1. The states reporting large wildfires are Washington with 4, followed by Alaska, California, Florida, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Oregon each reporting 1 wildfire.

The NIFC offers the following year-to-date comparison:

• From 1/1/23 through 6/16/23, 21,305 wildfires have been reported and they have burned 644,918 acres.
• From 1/1/22 through 6/16/22, 14,109 wildfires had been reported and they had burned 2,990,255 acres.
• The 10-year average (2013–22) for the same period is 23,996 wildfires and 1,333,815 acres burned.

Daily dry and windy weather will lead to elevated and locally critical fire weather conditions and moderate to high-risk significant fire potential from southeast Arizona through southern New Mexico into southwest Texas. Well above normal temperatures will spread across much of Texas with increasing significant fire potential.