WWildfires can happen in many places in the United States, especially during droughts, but are most common in Western United States and Florida. They may be triggered naturally, most commonly by lightning, or by human activity like unextinguished smoking materials, faulty electrical equipment, overheating automobiles, or arson. Fire management policy favored aggressive wildfire suppression starting in the early 20th century. In the 21st century, higher temperature and droughts driven by global warming have become more of a concern, and there has been increased advocacy for controlled burns and other measures to prevent fuel from accumulating in wild areas that can create more intense, larger, and difficult to control fires. Firefighters are generally employed by governments, including municipal and county fire departments, regional mutual aid organizations, and state agencies like the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and the New Jersey Forest Fire Service. Wildfire response is coordinated at the federal level by the National Interagency Fire Center, with the participation of the U.S. National Weather Service, and various agencies of the Departments of the Interior, Agriculture, Homeland Security, and Commerce. Fire squadrons of the United States Army are also sometimes called to large fires.
WThe 2016 Southeastern United States wildfires were a series of wildfires in the Southeastern United States in October and November 2016. As of November 15, 2016, the U.S. Forest Service reported tracking 33 wildfires that had burned about 90,000 acres (36,000 ha).
WBurned area emergency response (BAER) is an emergency risk management reaction to post wildfire conditions that pose risks to human life and property or could further destabilize or degrade the burned lands. Even though wildfires are natural events, the presence of people and man-made structures in and adjacent to the burned area frequently requires continued emergency risk management actions. High severity wildfires pose a continuing flood, debris flow and mudflow risk to people living within and downstream from a burned watershed as well as a potential loss of desirable watershed values.
WElk Bath is a wildlife photograph by John McColgan, a fire behavior analyst working for the Alaska Fire Service division of the Bureau of Land Management. It was taken on August 6, 2000, on the East Fork of the Bitterroot River on the Sula Complex, Bitterroot National Forest, Montana, United States, and is also sometimes known by the title, Bitterroot Forest Fire or, more vaguely, Montana Fire. When NASA featured it in its online Astronomy Picture of the Day series, it was called Fire on Earth. The image shows two Rocky Mountain elk seeking protection from a wildfire by standing in the river.
WThe Great Fire of 1910 was a wildfire in the western United States that burned three million acres in North Idaho and Western Montana, with extensions into Eastern Washington and Southeast British Columbia, in the summer of 1910. The area burned included large parts of the Bitterroot, Cabinet, Clearwater, Coeur d'Alene, Flathead, Kaniksu, Kootenai, Lewis and Clark, Lolo, and St. Joe national forests.
WThe 2016 Great Smoky Mountains wildfires, also known as the Gatlinburg wildfires, were a complex of wildfires which began in late November 2016. Some of the towns most impacted were Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, both near Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The fires claimed at least 14 lives, injured 190, and is one of the largest natural disasters in the history of Tennessee.
WAn extremely critical fire weather event is the greatest threat level issued by the NWS Storm Prediction Center (SPC) for wildfire events in the United States. Extremely critical areas are issued only several times a year when forecasters at the SPC are confident of extremely dangerous wildfire conditions on a given day. These are typically reserved for the most extreme events.
WThis is an incomplete list of major wildfires in Washington state history.