🔥 About the Live U.S. Wildfire Tracker

The Orbis Weather Live U.S. Wildfire Tracker provides an interactive view of current wildfire incident information across the United States using data from the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) Wildland Fire Interagency Geospatial Services (WFIGS).

The tracker is designed for general situational awareness — helping you see where wildfire incidents are being reported, compare incident size and containment information when available, and identify fires that may warrant closer attention.

🔥 What Is an Active Wildfire Incident?

An incident shown on the tracker represents a wildfire record currently included in the underlying WFIGS incident data used by Orbis Weather.

An incident appearing on the map does not necessarily mean that the entire reported acreage is actively burning at that moment. Wildfires can remain listed while suppression, monitoring, containment or incident-management activities continue.

Incident status can also change as fire-management agencies update their reports.

📍 What Do the Map Markers Represent?

The wildfire markers on the Orbis Weather map represent incident locations reported in the WFIGS data.

A marker should not be interpreted as the complete geographic extent of a wildfire.

Wildfire perimeters are separate geospatial products and may be updated on a different schedule. A large wildfire can extend many miles from its incident-location marker.

For detailed fire boundaries, evacuation zones or local road closures, consult the responsible fire-management agency and local emergency authorities.

📏 What Does Fire Acreage Mean?

When available, acreage represents the reported or mapped size associated with the wildfire incident.

Acreage can change considerably during an active fire. New mapping from aircraft, satellites, GPS observations or ground crews can produce significant revisions even when the fire has not grown by the same amount.

For this reason, an increase or decrease in reported acreage does not always represent the amount of land burned since the previous update.

Some incidents may also have missing, preliminary or delayed acreage information.

🚒 What Does Containment Mean?

Containment is generally expressed as a percentage and describes the portion of a wildfire perimeter where firefighters believe established control features are expected to prevent the fire from spreading beyond those lines under anticipated conditions.

Containment does not mean the fire is extinguished.

For example, a fire reported as 80% contained may still have active fire behavior within the perimeter and may still require substantial firefighting resources.

Likewise, a low containment percentage does not by itself describe how intense a fire is or how much immediate danger it presents to a particular community.

Containment information may be unavailable for some incidents or may temporarily lag behind changing conditions in the field.

🔄 How Current Is the Wildfire Information?

Orbis Weather retrieves wildfire incident information from the underlying NIFC/WFIGS data services.

Updates depend on when incident-management personnel and participating agencies submit or revise information in those systems. Different fields — such as acreage, containment and incident status — may therefore update at different times.

Orbis Weather does not independently determine wildfire size, containment or incident status.

Because wildfire conditions can change rapidly, always check the reporting time and official incident information before making decisions based on a particular value.

📊 Data Sources & Orbis Methodology

Primary wildfire incident source: National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) / Wildland Fire Interagency Geospatial Services (WFIGS)

Orbis Weather retrieves and organizes available incident records into an interactive map and searchable wildfire display. Depending on the information available for an incident, the tracker may display details such as incident name, location, acreage and containment.

The underlying wildfire information remains the product of the agencies and incident-management organizations contributing to the national wildland-fire reporting system.

Orbis Weather does not independently verify every individual incident record.

💨 Wildfire Tracker vs. Smoke & Air Quality Tracker

The Live U.S. Wildfire Tracker and the Wildfire Smoke & Air Quality Tracker answer different questions.

🔥 Wildfire Tracker: Shows reported wildfire incidents and available incident information such as location, acreage and containment.

💨 Smoke & Air Quality Tracker: Helps you evaluate smoke and particulate air pollution, including PM2.5 and Air Quality Index information.

A wildfire does not have to be nearby to affect your air quality. Smoke can travel hundreds or even thousands of miles depending on winds and atmospheric conditions.

Likewise, a nearby wildfire does not automatically mean your location is experiencing unhealthy air quality.

For smoke exposure and air-quality conditions, use the Orbis Weather Wildfire Smoke & Air Quality Tracker in addition to the wildfire incident map.

⚠️ Important Wildfire & Emergency Disclaimer

The Orbis Weather Live U.S. Wildfire Tracker is intended for general information and situational awareness only.

Do not use this tracker to make evacuation, firefighting, emergency-response or life-safety decisions.

Map markers are not evacuation zones, and the absence of a marker does not guarantee that an area is free from wildfire danger.

For evacuation orders, evacuation warnings, road closures, shelter information and immediate threats to life or property, follow instructions from local emergency management, law enforcement, fire authorities and other official agencies.

For detailed incident-specific wildfire information, consult NIFC, InciWeb and the agency responsible for managing the individual fire.