Wildfire activity continues across multiple geographic areas. Yesterday, 81 new fires were reported nationwide, including three new large fires. Currently, 32 large fires are uncontained, with more than 6,200 personnel assigned to incidents across the country, including four complex incident management teams.
So far this year, 34,427 fires have burned almost 2.8 million acres nationwide, exceeding the 10-year average for both fires and acres burned to date. Active and moderate fire behavior was reported across geographic areas, and extreme fire behavior was reported on two fires in the Great Basin, including the Cottonwood Fire near Beaver, Utah grew more than 30,000 acres since yesterday’s report.
For every fire that gets large enough to make national news, there are far more that do not. The vast majority of wildfires are contained within 24 hours of their discovery, also known as the initial attack stage. Prepositioning firefighters and firefighting resources strategically for initial attack, especially in areas where predictive services have identified a potential for large fire growth, is a critical consideration during the busiest part of the fire year and must be balanced with the tremendous need for resources to fight large fires.
Weather
Thunderstorms will develop across much of the Intermountain West today as monsoonal moisture aloft quickly surges into the region. This activity will initially be on the drier side, but some wetting rainfall is possible where several rounds occur. New lightning ignitions will be most likely across southern portions of the Great Basin and West Slope, extending into Arizona and northwestern New Mexico, where faster storm motions and parched fuels will align. Erratic outflow winds will likely challenge many of the established wildfires through the afternoon and evening hours, and severe wind gusts over 60 mph will be possible locally. Quick-moving but more isolated thunderstorms will also affect the Northwest into Idaho and western Montana. Hot, dry and unstable conditions will otherwise be the rule throughout the Intermountain West ahead of the more unsettled conditions. Dry air will overspread the Southeast behind a front that will focus widely scattered thunderstorms across the Florida peninsula. Showers and thunderstorms will spread a bit farther north and west in the Alaska Interior, with the warmest temperautres over western Alaska to the North Slope as areas farther south remain milder.
Daily statistics
Number of new large fires or emergency response * New fires are identified with an asterisk
