National Fire News: June 22, 2026: The National Preparedness Level increased to 3 (PL3) late last week as significant wildland fire activity continues across multiple geographic areas and the potential for additional large fires remains elevated in the days ahead. While current resource capability remains sufficient to sustain incident operations, geographic areas are increasingly utilizing national support to accomplish incident management objectives. The increase reflects growing demand for firefighting resources and heightened fire potential across several regions of the country.
There was a slight uptick in national fire behavior over the holiday weekend. Currently, firefighters are working on suppressing 31 large fires nationwide across 8 geographic areas. The Great Basin has the largest number of these large fires, with 11. The largest fire in the country today is the South Fork Fire in Nebraska, last reported at nearly 40,000 acres. However, the fire is 90% contained and reporting minimal fire behavior.
More than 5,000 personnel, including two complex incident management teams, are assigned to incidents nationwide. So far this year, 34,038 fires have burned more than 2.7 million acres.
