Iowa Fire Map: Track Iowa Wildfires Live in 2026

An Iowa fire map fuses official incident reports, NASA satellite heat detections and National Weather Service fire-weather alerts to track a state where fires are small, fast, and concentrated into a few dangerous weeks each spring and fall. This page explains when and where Iowa burns and how to follow a fire today.

What does an Iowa fire map show right now?

An Iowa fire map layers agency incident reports, satellite thermal detections and active National Weather Service fire-weather alerts into one view. Iowa fires are usually small and short-lived compared with western wildfires, so a map that updates quickly matters more than one that shows large mapped perimeters.

Incident records come from whichever agency responded — a county or rural fire department, the Iowa DNR, or a federal partner — and they carry the numbers people quote: acres, cause, and containment. Satellite detections from NASA's MODIS and VIIRS instruments and NOAA's GOES satellites report heat within minutes to a few hours, which matters in Iowa because a wind-driven grass fire can burn out before an agency ever files a report.

When is Iowa's wildfire season?

Iowa's wildfire risk concentrates into two short windows: early spring, before green-up, and again after fall harvest. Fire officials describe March and April as the state's most dangerous stretch, when last year's dead grass, leaves and downed wood are exposed after snowmelt but before new growth returns, and winds tend to run stronger and less predictable than in summer.

Iowa DNR fire program leader Jason Walker put the state's narrow burning window plainly: "there's a high percentage of Iowa that most of the year is just literally unburnable. It's either green corn or black dirt," he told The Gazette, adding that cured, standing cornfields in the fall produce "some pretty crazy fires every year."

That pattern showed up clearly in 2026. NWS Des Moines meteorologist Jim Lee said central Iowa had already logged six Red Flag Warnings in the first three months of 2026, compared with four over the same period in 2025 and three in 2024. State fire data mirrors the trend: the Eastern Area's interagency reporting recorded 362 wildfires burning 3,965 acres across Iowa in 2024, rising to 3,173 wildfires burning 26,024 acres in 2025, virtually all human-caused in both years.

Which agencies fight fires in Iowa?

No single statewide wildland fire department exists in Iowa. Local and rural volunteer fire departments handle the overwhelming majority of grass, field and timber fires, and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources leads prescribed burning and wildfire response on state forests, wildlife management areas and other public conservation land.

The Iowa State Fire Marshal Division, part of the Department of Public Safety, administers open-burning prohibitions statewide under Iowa Code section 100.40, issuing a burn ban proclamation at the request of a local fire chief, city council or county board of supervisors when conditions warrant, and maintains a public map of active bans.

State forestry/wildfire agency

Iowa Department of Natural Resources, Wildland Fire Program (Ames)

Burn ban authority

Iowa State Fire Marshal Division, Department of Public Safety

Geographic coordination

Missouri-Iowa Interagency Coordination Center (MOCC), under the Eastern Area Coordination Center

Fire-weather forecasts

NWS Des Moines, NWS Quad Cities (Davenport), NWS Sioux Falls and NWS La Crosse, by region

Iowa's dispatch and mutual aid runs through the Missouri-Iowa Interagency Coordination Center, which operates under the twenty-state Eastern Area Coordination Center, according to NIFC's coordination center listings. Four National Weather Service offices split coverage of the state by region, each issuing its own Red Flag Warnings and Fire Weather Watches for its part of Iowa.

Where do Iowa wildfires usually burn?

Iowa wildfires burn overwhelmingly in grass, cropland margins, ditches and pockets of timber rather than in unbroken wilderness, because row crops cover most of the state. Jason Walker's description of the landscape as "either green corn or black dirt" for much of the year captures why: the window when vegetation is both present and dry enough to carry fire is short and specific.

Western Iowa's Loess Hills, a narrow band of steep, grass-covered bluffs along the Missouri River, and areas of northwest Iowa near Woodbury, Plymouth and Monona counties show up repeatedly in state fire reporting. The Iowa Environmental Council's wildfire risk mapping puts Woodbury County in the 92nd percentile for wildfire risk statewide, with pockets of Tama and Benton counties in the mid-to-high 80s.

Fall harvest season adds a second, different risk: dry, standing corn and bean stubble across the state, combined with farm equipment as an ignition source. Officials have specifically flagged drought-stressed northeast and southeast Iowa for elevated harvest-season fire risk in recent years.

What are the largest wildfires in Iowa history?

Iowa does not keep a public ranked list of its largest fires the way many western states do, because most Iowa fires are measured in single acres rather than thousands, but a handful of recent fires stand out clearly against that baseline.

The Bronson-area fire began the afternoon of March 28, 2026, when a brush pile burn thought to be extinguished re-ignited, according to the Times Republican and the National Weather Service in Sioux Falls. Wind gusts reached 51 mph at Spencer and relative humidity fell to 10-15% that afternoon; the fire ran several miles, closed Highway 20 between Lawton and Moville, damaged power lines, and forced evacuations in Lawton, Bronson and Moville before crews reached roughly 90% containment that evening.

The 2023 Loess Hills State Forest fire, by contrast, burned slowly through a state forest rather than racing across open ground, and Iowa DNR officials described it afterward as a "stand-replacing" event that killed mature bur oak trees the forest had grown for decades.

What weather drives Iowa fire danger?

Wind, low humidity and cured fuel combine to create Iowa's worst fire days, the same three ingredients that drove the March 28, 2026 outbreak across Iowa, Minnesota and South Dakota. NWS offices covering Iowa issue a joint public product called the Grassland Fire Danger Index, rating conditions from Low through Extreme based on fuel curing, temperature, humidity and sustained wind.

NWS Des Moines issues a Red Flag Warning only for Very High or Extreme grassland fire danger, which it defines as conditions under which "fires spread rapidly and show erratic behavior" or, at Extreme, conditions where "potential for large fires exists" and open burning is not recommended and may be locally prohibited.

Wind gusts above 40-50 mph paired with relative humidity near 10-15%, as occurred statewide on March 28, 2026, are the specific combination Iowa forecasters watch for. The National Weather Service issued Red Flag Warnings more than 24 hours ahead of that event, giving crews and residents advance notice before the Bronson fire started.

How do evacuations work in Iowa?

County emergency management agencies and sheriffs order Iowa wildfire evacuations; there is no statewide staged system comparable to the West's Ready-Set-Go or Washington's Level 1-2-3 terminology, and officials generally distinguish only between a "be prepared to evacuate" advisory and a "mandatory evacuation" order, deciding case by case as a fire's path becomes clear. See our Nebraska fire map page for a state that borders Iowa and has used similar plain-language orders during recent grass fire outbreaks.

During the March 2026 Bronson fire, Woodbury County officials evacuated residents in Lawton, Bronson and Moville and closed Highway 20 in both directions as the fire crossed it, while neighboring Plymouth County told residents near Kingsley to prepare to evacuate before determining the fire was no longer a direct threat to that area. The American Red Cross assisted displaced families.

Because Iowa's fires move fast and burn out quickly, the practical advice from county emergency managers is the same every time: leave when told to, follow the specific route officials give rather than your own judgment, and do not return until officials lift the order.

How do you read an Iowa fire map in 60 seconds?

An Iowa fire map rewards a quick, consistent check, especially during the March-April and fall harvest windows when conditions can turn dangerous within hours.

1. Open the live fire map and filter to Iowa, or allow location access to see fires within a set distance of you in miles.
2. Check whether an official incident record exists yet; in Iowa's fast-moving fires, satellite heat often appears before any agency has filed a report.
3. Read the timestamps — "Last NIFC update," "Last satellite heat" and "Last GOES heat" — since a Iowa grass fire can be fully out within hours of a detection.
4. Check for an active NWS Red Flag Warning or Grassland Fire Danger statement over your county.
5. Check whether your county has an active open-burning ban before lighting anything, even a permitted burn.
6. Follow your county emergency management agency and local news for evacuation status if a fire is active near you.

The same routine applies to fires drifting in from neighboring states; see our guide to reading a live US wildfire map for how each data layer works, and current wildfires nationwide for the bigger picture.

What does wildfire smoke do to Iowa air quality?

Smoke in Iowa comes from two different sources that look similar on a map but behave differently: local grass and field fires, which produce short, localized smoke that usually clears within hours, and drifting smoke from much larger wildfires in Canada or the western United States, which can blanket the state for days during an active western fire season.

Smoke concentrations, wherever they originate, are reported through the EPA's Air Quality Index, which uses six color-coded categories from Good to Hazardous.

Wind that drives Iowa's own grass fires also clears their smoke quickly, but the same wind can carry drifting dust from bare, tilled fields alongside any smoke, producing the same kind of "thick, brown haze" reported statewide during the March 2026 fire outbreak. Our smoke and air quality tracker guide explains how to tell a local source from a distant one.

Frequently asked questions about the Iowa fire map