Seven of the nine large wildfires still listed as uncontained are in the East and the South

The National Interagency Coordination Center’s situation report for Thursday, October 29, 2026, lists nine large wildfires as uncontained, and seven of the nine are in the East and the South. Four sit in the Southern Area, three in the Eastern Area, and the last two in the Northwest. The national preparedness level stood at 1, the lowest of the five tiers.

Save more, waste less: The Cool Down’s newsletter sends smart, simple changes that help you and the planet in your everyday life.

Subscribe to The Cool Down →

We may earn a commission if you sign up.

The Southern Area’s four fires are Redbud in Oklahoma, Bee Haven 2 in Florida, Range 47B in Mississippi and Hewitt Lane in South Carolina. The Eastern Area’s three are Cherry Plain in New York and two in Michigan, Black River and Ridge. Those seven make up the East and South count. The remaining two, Austin in Oregon and Sisi in Washington, belong to the Northwest Area, which is why the map of late-October fire looks so unlike a western summer.

The nine named fires and where each stands

Each figure below comes from the October 29 situation report, which was dated 0730 MDT. In the South, Redbud in Oklahoma is 60 percent contained about ten miles southeast of Wilburton, and Bee Haven 2 in Florida is 85 percent contained, twenty-eight miles northwest of Lake City. Range 47B in Mississippi, three miles northeast of Brooklyn, is 50 percent contained, while Hewitt Lane in South Carolina, seven miles south of Georgetown, is 60 percent contained. In the East, Cherry Plain in New York is 99 percent contained near Stephentown, Black River in Michigan is 85 percent contained four miles south of Wakefield, and Ridge in Michigan is 50 percent contained six miles north of Negaunee.

Out West, the same report puts Austin in Oregon at 98 percent contained, twenty-five miles southeast of Estacada, and Sisi in Washington at 34 percent contained, ten miles northwest of Stehekin.

What uncontained means when a fire is 99 percent contained

The report’s label is a reporting category, not a description of how any one fire is behaving. A large fire stays on the uncontained list until crews hold a line around its entire perimeter, so Cherry Plain at 99 percent and Austin at 98 percent appear beside Sisi at 34 percent. Only three of the nine are at or below the halfway mark: Range 47B, Ridge and Sisi. Readers picturing nine runaway blazes would be misreading the percentages the National Interagency Coordination Center itself printed, which describe a list of fires mostly well along toward being closed out.

The geography follows the agency’s own organization. The Eastern Area Coordination Center, based in Milwaukee, supports federal and state wildland fire agencies across twenty states, and its page showed the Eastern Area at preparedness level 1 as of September 1, 2026. The Southern Area Coordination Center, based in Atlanta, mobilizes resources across the Southeastern United States and listed the Southern Area at level 2. That one-step difference is the only sign on the two pages that the South was busier than the East.

Counted by state, the nine fires spread across eight states: Oklahoma, Florida, Mississippi, South Carolina, New York, Michigan, Oregon and Washington. Michigan is the only state with two entries, and the pair shows how uneven containment can be inside one state: Black River is 85 percent contained, while Ridge, six miles north of Negaunee, is at 50 percent and carries a structures-threatened flag. Averaging the report’s figures, the Southern Area’s four fires stand at about 64 percent containment, against about 78 percent for the Eastern Area’s three, and the lowest Southern entry, Range 47B in Mississippi, shares its 50 percent mark with Ridge.

Structures threatened at Range 47B, Ridge and Sisi

Three of the nine carry a property warning in the report. Range 47B in Mississippi and Ridge in Michigan are marked structures threatened, and Sisi in Washington is marked residences threatened. The three flagged fires are also the three least contained on the list, with Sisi at 34 percent and Range 47B and Ridge at 50 percent each. The report lists no structure losses for any of the named fires.

A quiet national board at Preparedness Level 1

National Preparedness Level 1 is the lowest tier. The interagency definition describes it as a state in which geographic areas meet their incident management objectives with local resources and little or no national support. At that level, the odds that one area’s fires will pull crews and equipment from another are small, and the report’s nine uncontained fires, spread across three geographic areas, fit that picture. The Eastern Area Coordination Center’s page dated the national level to October 14, 2026.

The report belongs to a series: the Incident Management Situation Report is produced by the coordination center and, according to the interagency fire information page, comes out daily for most of the year and weekly during winter. The next edition will show whether Range 47B and Ridge move past the halfway mark in containment. Until then, the 50 percent figure for each is the latest number on record, and the Mississippi and Michigan structures flagged as threatened remain the open question.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

Save more, waste less: Subscribe to The Cool Down →

We may earn a commission if you sign up.