Wildfires

Wildfires - USA - Overview

Wildfires continue to rage along the United States' West Coast, endangering people and property and stretching thin the resources available to fight them.

The National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) reports about 30,000 wildland firefighters and support personnel are fighting wildfires in 10 states. And it appears to be only getting worse – on Tuesday, 16 new large fires were reported, mostly in Idaho and Montana.

The total number of large active fires stands at 88, with 21 in Idaho, 17 in Washington, 16 in California, 14 in Montana and 11 in Oregon.

The NIFC has requested 200 active duty military personnel to help battle the wildfires.

The year-to-date acres burned is now about 7.1 million acres. This is the earliest the number of national acres burned has been more than 7 million in the past 20 years. About 72 percent of the current year-to-date acres burned are from the large fires in Alaska earlier this summer. The NIFC reports active fires are spread over 1,186,753 acres.