After a winter that brought little relief to parched grasslands across the Southern Plains and left mountain snowpack below average in parts of the Northern Rockies, AccuWeather is projecting a punishing wildfire season: between 65,000 and 80,000 fires nationwide in 2026, with the potential to char up to 8 million acres. If the upper end of that forecast holds, it would mark one of the most destructive fire years in the past decade and add to the financial and human toll that has been mounting since the devastating Palisades and Eaton fires scorched the Los Angeles area in January 2025.
Where the numbers come from
The baseline for any wildfire forecast is the federal record kept by the National Interagency Fire Center. NIFC’s dataset stretches back to 1983 and shows that the U.S. averages roughly 70,000 wildfires per year. Acreage, however, tells a different story: while fire counts have gradually declined over the decades, the total area burned per season has trended upward, driven by hotter temperatures, longer dry spells, and decades of fuel accumulation in western forests. The five-year average through 2025 sits near 7.2 million acres.
AccuWeather’s projected ceiling of 8 million acres would land above that recent average but still well below the worst modern seasons. In 2015, 2017, and 2020, the country each lost more than 10 million acres to wildfire. Eight million acres is not a record-breaker on paper, yet the damage any season inflicts depends less on raw acreage than on where fires ignite and how close they burn to communities.
Drought is tipping the scales
The strongest signal supporting the higher end of AccuWeather’s range is drought. As of late May 2026, the U.S. Drought Monitor shows expanding areas of moderate to severe drought across the Southern Plains, the central Great Basin, and portions of the Pacific Northwest. Drought dries out grasses, shrubs, and timber, shortening the gap between snowmelt and fire-ready fuels. It also means that any ignition, whether from a lightning strike or a dragged trailer chain, is more likely to spread fast and resist containment.
Federal analysts at NOAA and the National Drought Mitigation Center have consistently identified persistent drought as the single largest driver of above-average wildfire seasons, especially when it overlaps with heat waves and low humidity. Spring 2026 is checking both boxes in several regions.
Climate signals are murky
One complicating factor is the state of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center ENSO probability outlook shows ENSO-neutral conditions favored through at least late summer 2026. Neutral years are wildcards for fire forecasters. A strong El Niño typically wets the Southwest; a strong La Niña tends to dry it out. Neutral conditions produce neither pattern reliably, which means regional fire potential can swing sharply based on localized weather rather than broad climate drivers.
That uncertainty widens the confidence interval around any national acreage estimate and is one reason AccuWeather’s range spans 15,000 fires and several million acres.
Regions to watch this summer
AccuWeather’s forecast is a national number, but wildfire risk is always local. Based on current drought coverage and NIFC’s monthly Significant Wildland Fire Potential Outlook, several regions stand out heading into summer 2026:
- Southern Plains and Southern Rockies: Persistent drought and cured grass create conditions for fast-moving rangeland fires, the kind that devastated the Texas Panhandle in early 2024.
- Pacific Northwest: Below-normal snowpack in parts of Oregon and Washington could push fire season earlier than usual, particularly east of the Cascades.
- Northern Rockies and Great Basin: Dry conditions and heavy fuel loads from prior wet years set the stage for large timber fires if summer lightning storms materialize without significant rain.
- Southern California: Still recovering from the January 2025 fires, the region faces another year of below-average rainfall and Santa Ana wind risk heading into fall.
NIFC revises its regional outlooks monthly, so these risk assessments will sharpen as summer progresses.
The firefighting workforce question
Even a well-forecast fire season can overwhelm suppression resources if too many large fires ignite at once. The USDA Forest Service and the Department of the Interior collectively deploy thousands of wildland firefighters each summer, but the workforce has been under strain. Temporary pay supplements authorized under the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law gave federal wildland firefighters a raise of roughly $20,000 per year, but those supplements have faced repeated expiration deadlines and last-minute extensions, creating uncertainty that complicates recruitment and retention.
Neither agency has released a public readiness assessment for the 2026 season. Hiring is ongoing, according to federal job postings, but staffing adequacy depends on factors that are hard to gauge in advance: how many veterans return, how quickly new hires complete training, and whether early-season fires in one region pull crews away from another before peak season arrives.
If fire activity lands at the upper end of AccuWeather’s range, the system will be tested. Large, simultaneous incidents in multiple geographic areas can delay initial attack on new starts, allowing small fires to grow into campaign-level events that burn for weeks.
What this means for insurance and property owners
The financial backdrop makes this forecast especially consequential. The Los Angeles fires in January 2025 generated more than $30 billion in insured losses, accelerating a retreat by major insurers from fire-prone markets in California and other western states. Homeowners in the wildland-urban interface are already facing rising premiums, non-renewal notices, and growing reliance on state-backed insurers of last resort.
An 8-million-acre season would not, by itself, guarantee another catastrophic loss event. But it would increase the probability that at least some large fires reach developed areas, adding pressure to an insurance market that is already recalibrating its exposure to wildfire risk.
Smoke, air quality, and public health
Acres burned is also a proxy for smoke produced. Large wildfires can degrade air quality hundreds of miles downwind, pushing fine particulate matter (PM2.5) to levels that trigger health advisories for vulnerable populations: children, older adults, people with asthma or heart disease, and outdoor workers. During the 2020 and 2023 fire seasons, smoke from western wildfires blanketed cities as far east as New York and Washington, D.C.
No federal agency has published health-impact modeling specific to a 2026 scenario of 8 million burned acres. The actual toll will depend on fire locations, burn duration, and whether smoke corridors align with population centers. But public health departments in fire-prone states are already advising residents to stock N95 masks, check local air quality indexes daily during fire season, and have a plan for reducing exposure during prolonged smoke events.
How to prepare before peak season hits
For people living in or near fire-prone areas, the convergence of drought, uncertain climate signals, and workforce pressures argues for acting now rather than waiting for the first big fire to make headlines. Practical steps include:
- Clearing defensible space around structures: remove dead vegetation, trim branches within 5 feet of rooflines, and relocate firewood piles at least 30 feet from buildings.
- Hardening homes against embers: clean gutters, install ember-resistant vents, and replace wood fencing sections that connect to the house with metal or masonry.
- Reviewing evacuation plans: know at least two exit routes, keep a go-bag packed, and sign up for local emergency alerts.
- Monitoring conditions: bookmark NIFC’s National Fire News page for weekly updates on fire activity and the Drought Monitor for weekly drought assessments.
Communities can also pressure-test their alert systems, pre-position shelter supplies for smoke events, and coordinate with local fire departments on evacuation timing for neighborhoods with limited road access.
Tracking the season as it unfolds
No seasonal outlook can pin down the exact number of fires or acres that will burn. Lightning storms, human-caused ignitions, wind events, and the timing of monsoon rains will all play decisive roles that no model can fully anticipate months ahead. What the current evidence provides is a reasonable envelope of possibilities and a clear signal that 2026 warrants close attention.
The best way to evaluate AccuWeather’s forecast is to watch the federal scorecards as summer progresses. NIFC publishes year-to-date fire counts and acreage totals that can be compared against historical averages in near-real time. The Drought Monitor updates every Thursday. NOAA’s ENSO outlook refreshes monthly. If drought expands, fire counts climb ahead of the historical pace, and ENSO stays neutral, the upper end of AccuWeather’s range will look increasingly plausible. If monsoon moisture arrives early or drought contracts, the season could land closer to average.
Either way, the data is public, the tools are free, and the time to start paying attention is now.
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*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
