Georgia Fire Map: How to Track Georgia Wildfires Live in 2026

A Georgia fire map has to handle a state that records some 3,500 wildfires a year, burns 1.4 million acres on purpose, and occasionally produces a swamp fire that runs for months. In April 2026 the governor declared a state of emergency for 91 counties as South Georgia fires spread through drought-cured fuel.

What does a Georgia fire map show right now?

A Georgia 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. US Wildfire Tracker renders all four free in any browser and refreshes automatically every few minutes while the tab stays open.

Georgia's signal-to-noise problem is prescribed fire. Landowners and agencies burn about 1.4 million acres a year across the state, so on a clear February afternoon a satellite may report dozens of thermal anomalies in south Georgia timberland that are all planned, permitted and entirely under control.

US Wildfire Tracker handles that by scoring each detection: whether an official NIFC record is linked, how fresh the perimeter is, and how recent the VIIRS, MODIS or GOES heat is. Weak signals below 25 percent probability are hidden by default, and the app warns explicitly that hotspots can reflect prescribed burns or industrial heat.

The other thing a Georgia map has to convey is duration. The 2026 Pineland Road Fire in Clinch and Echols counties sat at 32,575 acres for weeks while containment climbed slowly from 10 percent to 90 percent. Acreage stopped being the interesting number long before the fire stopped being an incident.

When is Georgia's wildfire season?

Georgia's damaging fires cluster in late winter and spring, when hardwood leaf litter is cured, humidity drops behind cold fronts and green-up has not yet started. The state's defining events bear that out: the Sweat Farm Fire ignited April 16, 2007, the Honey Prairie Fire started April 30, 2011, and the South Georgia siege of 2026 peaked in late April and May.

Drought is the multiplier. When the State Forester issued a burn ban for 91 counties on April 22, 2026, fully 98 percent of Georgia's land area was in moderate to exceptional drought and the number of wildfires statewide in April had risen above the state's five-year average.

Summer is not fire season in the usual sense, but it is smoke season for a different reason: the Georgia Environmental Protection Division's annual open burning ban runs May 1 through September 30 in 54 mostly northern and central counties to protect air quality during high-ozone months.

That spring peak is shared with the rest of the Southeast. Our Florida fire map guide and the South Carolina wildfire guide describe the same seasonal pattern from either side of the state line, and it is the opposite of the June-July peak on our Alaska fire map page.

Which agencies fight wildfires in Georgia?

The Georgia Forestry Commission is the state's wildland fire agency. It runs suppression with engines, dozers and tractor-plows, issues burn permits, investigates arson, plows pre-suppression firebreaks and operates the state's wildfire dispatch system, which feeds a public map of active wildfires, prescribed burns and air quality readings.

GFC has been building capacity for large incidents. The agency reestablished a Type 3 incident management team in 2023 with 35 qualified members and a growing trainee pool, and it annually plows 11,000 miles of pre-suppression firebreaks.

When incidents outgrow the state, the Southern Area Coordination Center mobilizes crews, aircraft and incident management teams across the southeastern states, and FEMA can approve Fire Management Assistance Grant declarations — as it did in April 2026 for the Pineland Road Fire in Clinch and Echols counties and the Highway 82 Wildfire in Brantley County.

Where do Georgia wildfires usually burn?

The largest acreage burns in the southeast corner of the state, in and around the Okefenokee Swamp and the pine flatwoods of Ware, Charlton, Clinch, Echols and Brantley counties. Peat under the swamp is the reason: once drought lowers the water table, fire moves into organic soil and stops responding to ordinary containment.

North Georgia burns differently — steeper, smaller and more often in hardwood leaf litter, with fires that threaten mountain homes rather than industrial timberland. The 54-county EPD summer burning ban maps almost onto that northern half of the state.

Hurricane Helene changed the fuel picture statewide. Georgia Forestry Commission rangers and foresters cleared more than 4,000 miles of forest roads and more than 37,000 acres of downed debris after the storm, and the commission still cites significantly increased fuel loads from Helene as a factor in 2026 fire behavior.

What are the largest wildfires in Georgia history?

Georgia's record book is short and swamp-shaped. The 2007 Georgia Bay Complex is the reference point: a downed power line sparked the Sweat Farm Fire on April 16, 2007, southwest of Waycross, it consumed 20,000 acres in the first 48 hours, spread into the Okefenokee refuge by April 21, and when it was declared contained in July it had burned more than 564,450 acres in Georgia and Florida.

The 2007 complex also damaged nine homes and consumed an estimated $65 million in timber, which is the number that matters most in a state whose southern half is a working forest. The Honey Prairie Fire began with lightning on April 30, 2011, and continued lightning starts kept adding new fires through the summer, according to the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science Center.

For national context, the NIFC record shows 77,850 wildfires and 5,131,474 acres burned across the United States in 2025. Georgia's roughly 3,500 fires a year are a small share of the count and a very small share of the acreage — until a swamp dries out.

What weather drives Georgia fire danger?

Georgia's Red Flag Warning criteria are specific and published: relative humidity of 25 percent or less for at least one hour, winds of 15 mph or greater or frequent gusts of 25 mph or greater, and 10-hour fuel moisture of 6 percent or less. Those thresholds are set in the state's annual operating plan with the National Weather Service.

A Red Flag Warning means those conditions are expected within the next 24 hours; a Fire Weather Watch covers 24 to 48 hours out. Watches and warnings are typically issued with the routine fire weather forecasts, around 3:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. local time.

Under those short-term triggers sits drought. The Keetch-Byram Drought Index tracks moisture in the upper soil and duff on a 0 to 800 scale, and the Georgia Forestry Commission uses National Weather Service fire weather products and employs a staff meteorologist to interpret them for burners and firefighters.

Georgia is covered by several NWS forecast offices, including Peachtree City for north and central Georgia and Tallahassee for the southwest, so red flag headlines can appear for part of the state while the rest stays quiet.

Why does Georgia burn 1.4 million acres a year?

Georgians prescribe burn 1.4 million acres per year, according to the Georgia Forestry Commission — one of the largest deliberate fire programs in the country. In a longleaf and loblolly landscape, regular low-intensity fire is how you keep fuel loads down, control disease, maintain habitat and prevent the kind of buildup that turns a spring ignition into a 500,000-acre complex.

The process is formal. A written burn plan sets the prescription and objectives for the stand, specifies weather parameters, notes natural or constructed firebreaks and includes a map of the tract with anticipated smoke direction and smoke-sensitive areas. A GFC forester or any certified prescribed burner in the state can prepare the plan, and a burn permit must be obtained from the commission.

Smoke management is a separate discipline. Georgia maintains a Smoke Management Plan and burners use VSmoke-Web, a web implementation of the VSmoke dispersion model built for the southern United States, to plan around highways, hospitals and towns.

How do burn permits and burn bans work?

Georgia's outdoor burning rules changed on July 1, 2021. No permit is required for hand-piled natural vegetation and yard debris — leaves and limbs only — though the law added specific fire prevention precautions for that kind of burning, and local ordinances still apply.

Other categories still require notification or a permit from the Georgia Forestry Commission, obtained by calling 1-800-GA-TREES, including permits for air curtain destructors. Permits are good only for the day they are issued.

Burning without following Georgia code section 12-6-90 has consequences: unlawful burn notices may be issued and suppression charges may apply if a wildfire results.

How do evacuations work in Georgia?

Georgia does not use a statewide Ready-Set-Go or numbered evacuation level system for wildfire. Evacuation instructions come from county emergency management agencies and sheriffs' offices, and during the 2026 South Georgia fires the Georgia Forestry Commission directed residents to the Clinch County EMA, Echols County EMA and Brantley County Sheriff's Office for evacuation information.

The state guidance from GEMA/HS is blunt: pay attention to emergency alerts and notifications, evacuate immediately if authorities tell you to, avoid roads around the fire where equipment and personnel are repositioning, and check with local authorities or the FEMA app for open shelters.

The 2026 emergency also unlocked state capability. Governor Brian Kemp's April 22 declaration for 91 counties allowed the Georgia Department of Defense to mobilize National Guard troops and air assets, and prohibited price gouging, while remaining in effect for 30 days unless renewed.

How do you read a Georgia fire map fast?

The Georgia workflow is about telling planned fire from unplanned fire, and about not being fooled by a swamp fire whose acreage stopped changing weeks ago.

1. Open the live fire map and filter to Georgia, or use "fires near me" to list incidents within a set distance in miles of your location.
2. Read the probability tier first. In February and March, a low-confidence south Georgia detection with no NIFC record attached is very often a permitted prescribed burn.
3. Open the fire and compare "Last NIFC update", "Last satellite heat" and "Last GOES heat". Fresh heat against a stale official record means the situation is moving faster than the reporting.
4. Check acres and containment together. A peat fire can hold the same acreage for a month while containment creeps upward.
5. Look for a Red Flag Warning polygon over the same ground before assuming anything about tomorrow.
6. For evacuation and road status, go to your county EMA, and use the directions-away links if you need to leave.

The general mechanics behind those layers, including how often each feed updates, are covered in our fire tracker guide. Air quality during a Georgia peat fire is worth watching too: on the EPA Air Quality Index, 101 to 150 means members of sensitive groups may experience health effects, and 201 to 300 is a health alert where the risk is increased for everyone.

Frequently asked questions about the Georgia fire map