US National Interagency Fire Center Wildfire Update for the Week Ending May 12th

The NIFC is reporting that year-to-date more than 145,200 wildfires were caused by people and about 389,000 acres have been burned. Lightening has ignited 143 wildfires and has burned approximately 54,000 acres. The states with the most human-caused wildfires are North Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Texas.

The NIFC National Fire Preparedness Level was raised on May 8th to a Level 2 out of 5 as wildfire activity continues to increase.

The number of large new fires or emergency responses as of May 12th was 2. The number of active large fires (not including individual fires within complexes) stands at 5. Currently, there are 47,901 acres involved in active fires. The total number of wildfires fires contained stands at 1. The states currently reporting large wildfires are Florida and New Mexico each with 2 and North Carolina is reporting 1.

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

• From 1/1/23 through 5/12/23, 14,940 wildfires have been reported and they have burned 463,108 acres.
• From 1/1/22 through 5/12/22, 24,302 wildfires had been reported and they had burned 1,286,250 acres.
• The 10-year average (2013–22) for the same period is 18,494 wildfires and 837,285 acres burned.

NIFC meteorologists are predicting limited fire activity during the week as recent and ongoing precipitation, along with continuing snow melt is helping to reduce the threat of wildfires along the Rocky Mountain regions, the upper Midwest and eastward. However, unusually high temperatures for this time of the year in the Pacific Northwest have the potential of creating greater wildfire risk over the next several days.