Alabama Fire Map: Track Alabama Wildfires Live in 2026

An Alabama fire map has to cover two separate fire years in one state: a spring peak that the Alabama Forestry Commission calls its busiest stretch, and a fall peak driven by drought and falling leaves. In the 30 days before its April 13, 2026 statewide Fire Alert, the AFC logged 387 wildfires and roughly 15,850 acres burned.

What does an Alabama fire map show right now?

An Alabama fire map fuses official NIFC incident records and interagency WFIGS perimeters, NASA VIIRS and MODIS thermal detections, NOAA GOES heat detections and National Weather Service fire-weather alerts into one live view. US Wildfire Tracker shows all four free in any browser, refreshing automatically every few minutes while the tab stays open.

Alabama's fire signature is many small, fast-moving ignitions rather than a handful of enormous ones. On a single day in April 2026, the Alabama Forestry Commission suppressed 181 wildfires statewide — described by the agency as a record for one day — burning about 1,700 acres, which works out to under ten acres per fire on average.

That pattern changes what a live map needs to answer. You are rarely tracking whether a megafire will reach a city; you are usually asking whether the smoke column past the tree line is a permitted prescribed burn, an escaped debris pile, or the fire that just pulled five engines off other calls. The probability tier is what separates those cases.

US Wildfire Tracker scores each detection on whether an official NIFC record is linked, how fresh the perimeter is and how recent the satellite heat is. Weak signals below 25 percent probability are hidden by default, and the app states plainly that hotspots can reflect prescribed burns or industrial heat — a distinction that matters in a state where nearly 1 million acres are burned on purpose every year.

When is Alabama's wildfire season?

Alabama runs two wildfire seasons a year, and the Alabama Forestry Commission treats both as real fire seasons rather than one long fire year. Spring, roughly February through May, is the busier of the two; fall, roughly October through December, follows leaf drop and a return of dry, windy weather.

"March is always our busiest month as far as wildfire response," said Rickey Fields, the AFC's Prescribed Fire Coordinator, in a February 2026 interview, noting that wildfire numbers climb as warmer weather brings more outdoor activity and more debris burning. Winter and early spring are also the state's main prescribed-burn window, which is why spring produces both the most planned fire and the most unplanned fire in the same weeks.

2026 showed how far a dry spring can push those numbers. By May 4, 2026, the state had logged roughly 2,000 wildfires burning more than 29,100 acres — already approaching the annual average of about 4,000 fires and 40,000 acres that the AFC cites for a normal year, with a full fall season still ahead.

That two-season rhythm is common across the Gulf South. Our Georgia fire map guide and Florida fire map guide describe a similar spring-and-fall pattern, while the North Carolina fire map guide shows the same window shifted slightly later by the Appalachian foothills.

Which agencies fight wildfires in Alabama?

The Alabama Forestry Commission, founded in 1924, is the agency legally charged with protecting and sustaining Alabama's 23 million acres of forestland. Its mission statement commits the agency "to protect Alabama's forests, assist landowners in carrying out responsible forest management, and to educate Alabamians on the value our forests provide."

AFC crews work alongside volunteer and municipal fire departments, which handle much of the initial structural and roadside response, while the Commission supplies wildland engines, dozers, aircraft patrols and a statewide dispatch system reachable at 1-800-392-5679 or 911.

The Alabama Emergency Management Agency (AEMA) coordinates the broader disaster response when a wildfire threatens lives or property at scale — sheltering, public warnings and, where needed, evacuation coordination with county EMAs. Federal land agencies manage their own ground inside Alabama's national forests, and interagency mobilization for major incidents runs through the Southern Area Coordination Center in Atlanta, which allocates crews, aircraft and incident management teams across the Southeast.

Where do Alabama wildfires usually burn?

Alabama's fire risk changes with its geography. North Alabama's steep, hardwood-covered mountains complicate access for engines and dozers; central Alabama's extensive pine plantations carry fire quickly through needle litter, especially during drought; and south Alabama's longleaf pine forests on sandy soil dry out fast and burn readily once ignited.

Unlike the West, almost none of Alabama's forestland is federal. The state's fire problem is overwhelmingly a private-land, wildland-urban-interface problem — homes and hunting land scattered through working pine forest — which is why debris burning and escaped agricultural fire, not lightning, drive most ignitions.

That geography also explains why a single dry weekend can spread damage across the whole state at once rather than concentrating it in one range. The April 11–13, 2026 surge that triggered the statewide Fire Alert burned across Mobile, Coosa, Escambia, Washington and Choctaw counties simultaneously — coastal plain and central Alabama both, in the same 72 hours.

What are Alabama's most active wildfire weeks on record?

Alabama does not produce the single-fire megafires common in the West; its risk shows up as a high count of small, fast fires across a short window. The 2026 spring season set several of the state's most active periods on record, based on the AFC's own reporting as the season unfolded.

For scale, NIFC recorded 77,850 wildfires and 5,131,474 acres across the entire United States in 2025 — Alabama's fires are numerous but small by national standards, which is exactly why a probability-scored map matters more than raw fire count here.

How do burn permits and Fire Alerts work in Alabama?

Alabama law requires a permit from the Alabama Forestry Commission for agricultural or silvicultural burning larger than one-quarter acre, or within 25 feet of woods or grass, under Alabama Code Section 9-13-11. Permits are free and are normally issued in minutes by calling the AFC dispatch center at 1-800-392-5679; Certified Prescribed Burn Managers can also apply online through burnpermits.forestry.alabama.gov.

Burning a field, grassland or woodland without a required permit is a Class B misdemeanor. Prescribed burning is conducted on roughly 1 million acres in Alabama every year, most of it on private land — fire that reduces the fuel available for the next unplanned wildfire.

Alabama's drought response runs in three escalating tiers, all defined by the AFC. A Fire Danger Advisory is issued when dry weather and low humidity combine to favor wildfires; it is advisory only, urging landowners to delay burning. A Fire Alert follows when wildfires become abnormally frequent or large, or smoke is degrading air quality; during a Fire Alert, only Certified Prescribed Burn Managers with adequate crews and equipment may still be issued a permit.

The April 13, 2026 Fire Alert stayed in effect through at least April 20; State Forester Rick Oates said the dry stretch meant "fires to escape easily and spread rapidly, taking longer and more of the agency's firefighting resources to contain." Source: WSFA

Most fires during a Fire Alert are not escaped prescribed burns. Assistant Division Director Balsie Butler said that same month that "a lot of the fires that we are coming across now are not coming from our permitted burns, they're just people out there burning," adding a direct instruction: "Do not burn — postpone burns until we get sufficient rainfall across the state."

What weather drives Alabama fire danger?

Four National Weather Service offices issue fire weather guidance for Alabama: Huntsville covers 12 counties in the north, Birmingham covers 38 counties across central Alabama, Mobile covers the southwest, and Tallahassee, Florida covers the southeast corner of the state.

All four offices work from Red Flag Warning criteria set out in the Alabama State Fire Weather Annual Operating Plan, jointly issued by the National Weather Service, the U.S. Forest Service and the Alabama Forestry Commission, and confirmed on the AFC's own site.

Drought index

Keetch-Byram Drought Index above 300 (this criterion is suspended in any county already under a Fire Alert).

Humidity

Minimum relative humidity below 25 percent.

Wind

20-foot sustained wind of 15 mph or greater, or gusts of 20 mph or greater (roughly 17 mph sustained or 25 mph gusts on a standard 10-meter airport sensor).

Duration

Conditions expected to last 4 hours or longer, per the AFC's published definition.

The Alabama Forestry Commission has the authority to restrict or completely ban outdoor burning statewide or in specific counties when those conditions combine with rising fire activity — the legal basis for the Fire Alert and Drought Emergency mechanisms described above.

How do evacuations work in Alabama?

Alabama uses two evacuation levels, defined in the state's emergency planning guidance. A voluntary evacuation is "a warning to persons within a designated area that a threat to life and property exists or is likely to exist in the immediate future" — residents are not required to leave but are encouraged to. A mandatory, or directed, evacuation is "a warning to persons within the designated area that an imminent threat to life and property exists," and individuals must comply with local officials' instructions.

Evacuation orders themselves are issued locally, by county emergency management and sheriffs, with the Alabama Emergency Management Agency coordinating state-level resources, shelters and public warnings when an incident crosses county lines or exceeds local capacity.

During any active wildfire, county emergency management channels and the AFC's own incident updates are the authoritative source for evacuation status — a live fire map is a situational-awareness tool, not a substitute for an official order.

How do you read an Alabama fire map fast?

In Alabama the recurring question is whether a heat signal is a permitted prescribed burn, a debris pile that got away, or a wildfire drawing engines off other calls during an already stretched Fire Alert.

1. Open the live fire map and filter to Alabama, or use "fires near me" to list incidents within a set distance in miles of your location.
2. Check the probability tier first. A low-confidence detection with no NIFC record attached is often a permitted prescribed or agricultural burn rather than a wildfire.
3. Open the fire and compare "Last NIFC update," "Last satellite heat" and "Last GOES heat" — fast-moving spring fires can outrun a stale perimeter within hours.
4. Check acres and containment together, and note the county, since AFC activity often spikes across several counties at once during a dry spell.
5. Look for a Red Flag Warning polygon, and check whether a statewide Fire Alert is in effect before planning any burning of your own.
6. For evacuation status, go to your county emergency management channel, and use the directions-away links if you need to leave.

Our fire tracker guide explains the latency behind each data layer in detail, and the wildfire tracking guide covers setting up alerts before a fire is close enough to see.

What does wildfire smoke do to Alabama air quality?

Smoke from Alabama's spring and fall fires is measured on the same EPA Air Quality Index used nationwide. The AFC's own Fire Alert language ties directly to air quality: the agency can restrict burning "when there is an issue with severe smoke causing air quality degradation," not only when fire counts are high.

Because most Alabama fires are small and low-intensity compared with Western crown fires, smoke tends to stay local and settle at ground level along roadways and river bottoms rather than lifting into a large regional plume — which is also why low-visibility smoke on rural highways is one of the hazards the AFC and NWS watch for during active Fire Alerts.

FAQ about the Alabama fire map