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July 14, 2024 - Wildfire activity continues to escalate due to extremely hot and dry conditions in many areas. Right now, 72 large active wildfires are being managed 
nationwide, and have burned 783,521 acres. Fire managers are using full suppression strategies on 44 of these wildfires. More than 17,000 wildland firefighters and support personnel are assigned to incidents across the nation.
Widespread dry lightning events are predicted in the western United States today and into the coming week (although expected to reduce in the coming days), and a significant escalation in fire behavior across several geographic areas is expected. These 7-Day Significant Fire Potential maps from predictive services show more information.
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. Residents, travelers, or workers on their way to any of these states should be advised and familiarize themselves with the elevated risks.
The national predictive services staff at the National Interagency Coordination Center released the National Significant Wildland Fire Potential Outlook for July through October. For additional information about the current outlook visit the Outlook page on the NICC site.
Our greatest shared resource is the air that we breathe, and as we have had many occasions to observe in recent years, smoke impacts can even affect communities hundreds and hundreds of miles away from active wildfires. Fire.airnow.gov is an excellent resource for monitoring air quality in your area and understanding where smoke impacts may be coming from. Limit your exposure to poor air quality by paying attention to what times of day it is at its worst and avoiding strenuous activity and limiting your outdoor time during those windows.
High confidence in isolated to scattered mixed wet and dry thunderstorms along and near the Sierra Crest extending into southern/eastern Oregon, the Great Basin, northern Rockies, Wyoming, and the Black Hills. Increasing confidence in at least a few, mostly dry thunderstorms for California’s Central Coast as well as the Sacramento Valley Foothills. A few mainly dry thunderstorms may be ongoing Sunday morning across portions of central/northern California into southwest/south-central Oregon, while the coverage of mixed wet/dry thunderstorms broadly increases toward the West Slope of the Colorado Rockies. Isolated storms may continue into Sunday night and Monday morning in the northern Great Basin into southwest Montana. Farther south, the monsoon pattern in the Southwest trending drier and less active, overall, with isolated to scattered mixed wet/dry thunderstorms mainly focused west of the Divide into northern Arizona. Few mixed wet/dry thunderstorms from southern California and the Mojave Desert may also trend wetter. Erratic and gusty winds of 45-50+ mph will be possible with nearly any thunderstorm in the West, but locally damaging downburst winds will be of particular concern from the Sierra Front, eastern Oregon into the Great Basin. The heat will continue to build over the Rockies extending into the Great Plains, with very low RH spreading into the central High Plains. Record heat will become more widespread across Southern Area with a dry air mass contributing to RH as low as 25-35%; IA will likely increase and large fires may become more likely in parts of MS, AL, TN, GA and SC. The rest of the Appalachians and Southeast will continue to dry out, as well. Downslope warming and drying over Alaska’s eastern Interior should last through the remainder of the weekend and into early next week; however much of the rest of the state will continue to have continued waves of wetting rainfall, heavy at times. A typically dry summertime trade wind pattern continues for Hawai’i. Frequent showers will continue to favor windward exposures and Mauka but trending wetter island-wide Sunday night into Monday.
| Number of new large fires or emergency response * New fires are identified with an asterisk |
13 | States currently reporting large fires: |
| Number of active large fires Total does not include individual fires within complexes. |
67 | |
| Acres from active fires | 774,588 | |
| Fires contained | 4 |
Year-to-date statistics
| 2024 (1/1/24-7/14/24) | Fires: 24,320 | Acres: 3,018,498 |
| 2023 (1/1/23-7/14/23) | Fires: 26,794 | Acres: 757,258 |
| 2022 (1/1/22-7/14/22) | Fires: 36,578 | Acres: 5,179,043 |
| 2021 (1/1/21-7/14/21) | Fires: 34,216 | Acres: 2,221,835 |
| 2020 (1/1/20-7/14/20) | Fires: 27,941 | Acres: 1,710,408 |
| 2019 (1/1/19-7/14/19) | Fires: 22,507 | Acres: 2,113,793 |
| 2018 (1/1/18-7/14/18) | Fires: 33,094 | Acres: 3,338,691 |
| 2017 (1/1/17-7/14/17) | Fires: 34,149 | Acres: 4,063,427 |
| 2016 (1/1/16-7/14/16) | Fires: 29,212 | Acres: 2,422,186 |
| 2015 (1/1/15-7/14/15) | Fires: 31,974 | Acres: 5,196,033 |
| 2014 (1/1/14-7/14/14) | Fires: 29,256 | Acres: 1,042,816 |
10-year average Year-to-Date
| 2014-2023 | Fires: 30,347 | Acres: 2,740,416 |
Source: NIFC
