Ten miles west of Buffalo, Wyoming, a timber-and-brush fire called Foot Creek was burning on Sunday, Nov. 8, with residences threatened and roads closed. It had grown to 532 acres and was 41 percent contained. Small by the standards of the year, it was one of eight active incidents on a national tally that stood, for the calendar year, at 9,471,384 acres burned.
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That is 146 percent of the 10-year average to that date, which is 6,486,143 acres. Three days later the count had barely moved, at 9,471,814 acres. The latest report, issued Nov. 11, kept the pace at the same 146 percent, which means a fire year already far above normal had stopped gaining ground quickly as November opened.
The year-to-date count, as of Nov. 8 and Nov. 11
The National Interagency Coordination Center, which compiles the daily Incident Management Situation Report, put the year-to-date total in its Nov. 8 report at 68,257 fires and 9,471,384 acres. Fires are running at about 130 percent of the 10-year average of 52,363, and acres at about 146 percent. The newest report available, the Nov. 11 edition issued at 0730 Mountain time, shows 68,579 fires and 9,471,814 acres, with the 10-year averages having shifted to 52,805 fires and 6,502,090 acres. The percentages stayed at 130 and 146.
Acres rose by only 430 in three days, and the fire count by 322, a pace far slower than the summer and early autumn months when single incidents added thousands of acres in a day. National Preparedness Level was 1, the lowest of the five-step scale, in both reports, which points to a national fire load that had eased by November even though the cumulative tally had not.
Where 9.47 million acres sits in the record
NIFC’s annual statistics table, built from the same reports back to 1983, puts the figure in context. The highest totals in the table are 10,125,149 acres in 2015, 10,122,336 in 2020 and 10,026,086 in 2017, followed by 9,873,745 in 2006. Above 9.47 million, in that list, are only those four years, and 2026 already tops 2007’s 9,328,045 and 2012’s 9,326,238, so it would rank fifth.
The last two years sit well below it: 2024 burned 8,924,884 acres across 64,897 fires, and 2025 burned 5,131,474 acres across 77,850 fires. Fire counts illustrate a different pattern than acres: 2025 had more fires than 2026 has so far, but far fewer acres, because most of those fires stayed small. This year’s blazes, by contrast, covered a lot more ground per fire.
The rankings are provisional, and the comparison deserves care. Acres burned vary with where fires start as much as with how many start, so a year of 68,000 small fires and a year of the same count with a few giant ones can differ by millions of acres. The table covers 1983 through 2025 and does not state an update date, 2026 is not final until the year closes, and acreage totals are routinely revised as agencies reconcile their records.
What was still burning in November
The Nov. 8 report listed eight active incidents totaling 21,481 acres. Four were named: Foot Creek in Wyoming; Wild River in the White Mountain National Forest unit at 856 acres and 20 percent contained; Ridge in Michigan at 496 acres and 85 percent contained; and Bee Haven 2 24-06 in Florida at 2,060 acres and 85 percent contained. Estimated containment dates ran from Nov. 10 to Dec. 25.
Foot Creek was the only new large incident reported nationally that day, and it was in the Rocky Mountain Area; the Southern and Eastern Areas reported none. Each of the four named fires carried its own containment target, and the report logged no new large incidents elsewhere that morning. Regional conditions also favor a quiet winter, per the NIFC outlook issued Nov. 2, is that the Alaska season is over and snowpack is expanding there, while the Southwest has normal fire potential through February after historic September rain. Southern California’s potential is near normal, and the outlook says a winter of “extreme or even historic storminess” is possible.
The dry-weather backdrop and open questions
Copernicus’s October climate summary listed eastern North America among regions that were dry in October, one background condition for a fall that kept fire crews working in the East. The IMSR itself does not attribute the 146 percent figure to any one cause, and no named NIFC official is quoted in the reports reviewed, which are written as operational data rather than commentary.
The open number is the year-end total. At 9,471,814 acres on Nov. 11, 2026 sits roughly 650,000 acres short of 2015’s record 10.1 million, and the daily gains have shrunk to hundreds of acres. Unless a late wind-driven event arrives, the final figure is likely to land near 9.5 million acres, and the next IMSR entries will show whether the counter stays that flat.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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