US National Interagency Fire Center Wildfire Update for the Week Ending June 22nd

The US National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) is reporting that as of Thursday, June 22nd, 12 large wildfires have burned 87,213 acres in five states. No large new wildfires have been reported over the past 7 days. Nationally, since January 1st, 22,052 wildfires have burned 636,031 acres across the US. The National Preparedness is currently at a level 2 out of 5.

The National Interagency Coordination Center (NICC) located at the NIFC reports that since May 8th, the US has mobilized a total of 1,177 personnel via the CIFFC/National Interagency Fire Center agreement to Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec and the CIFFC, which includes: fire suppression crews (942 personnel); 71 individual overhead, 40 smokejumpers, and four spotters; and 9 incident management teams (120 personnel).

The number of active large fires (not including individual fires within complexes) stands at 8. The total number of wildfires contained stands at 3. The states currently reporting large wildfires are Arizona with 4, followed by New Mexico with 3 and North Carolina with 1.

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

• From 1/1/23 through 6/22/23, 22,277 wildfires have been reported and they have burned 640,741 acres.
• From 1/1/22 through 6/22/22, 14,109 wildfires had been reported and they had burned 3,360,037 acres.
• The 10-year average (2013–22) for the same period is 25,197 wildfires and 1,510,227 acres burned.

Widespread dry and windy weather will continue across the Southwest, southern Great Basin, West Slope, and southeast California, leading to elevated and critical fire weather conditions—including moderate to high-risk significant fire potential in the Southwest.