Maryland Fire Map: Track MD Wildfires Live in 2026

A Maryland fire map has to cover two different landscapes at once: the forested mountains of Garrett and Allegany counties, and the marshes of the Eastern Shore, where arson drove Maryland to 172 wildfires and 8,167 acres burned in 2025 — nearly nine times the acreage of 2024.

What does a Maryland fire map show right now?

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

Maryland's Forest Service responds to an average of about 200 wildfires a year burning roughly 2,200 acres over the past decade, while local fire departments separately handle more than 5,000 outdoor fire incidents annually. Most years look modest; 2025 did not.

In 2025, the Maryland Forest Service responded to 172 wildland fires that burned 8,167 acres — 13 percent more fires than the five-year average, but 126 percent more acres, almost entirely because of a cluster of large arson fires on the Eastern Shore. That gap between a "normal" fire count and abnormal acreage is exactly what a live map is built to surface quickly.

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 other non-wildfire heat sources.

When is Maryland's wildfire season?

Maryland wildfire activity is concentrated in the spring and fall, when forest fuels are driest and gusty fronts move through quickly. Spring is the busier of the two: dead leaves, dormant grass and low humidity combine with strong spring winds to spread fire fast before trees leaf out.

March 2025 illustrated the pattern at its worst, becoming the busiest month of the year — roughly double the five-year average for March — as exceptionally warm, dry conditions lingered across the state and the wider region.

Maryland Forest Service state fire supervisor Chris Robertson described it this way: "March 2025 was characterized by a continuation of exceptionally warm conditions, contributing to a record-setting warm period nationally," a pattern that primed both the mountain west and the coastal Eastern Shore to burn.

That two-region spring pattern is common across the Mid-Atlantic; our North Carolina fire map guide covers a similar late-winter-through-spring peak, while the wildfire map guide explains how drought monitoring and green-up timing shift regional fire risk more broadly.

Which agencies fight wildfires in Maryland?

The Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Forest Service runs the state's wildland fire program, with a State Fire Supervisor at headquarters in Annapolis and regional fire managers covering western Maryland (based in Flintstone, Allegany County) and the Eastern Shore (based in Church Creek, Dorchester County).

Local and volunteer fire departments handle the overwhelming majority of Maryland's fire calls — more than 5,000 outdoor fire incidents a year — with the Forest Service stepping in on wildland fires that threaten forestland, natural areas or exceed local initial-attack capacity.

For the largest incidents, Maryland can call on the Maryland National Guard for aerial water drops, as it did during both the 2023 Owings Mills fire in Baltimore County and multiple 2025 Eastern Shore fires, plus mutual aid from surrounding jurisdictions and states.

Where do Maryland wildfires usually burn?

Maryland's fire risk splits cleanly into two landscapes. In the forested mountains of Garrett and Allegany counties in the far west, steep terrain, dense hardwood and pine stands, and the state's coldest, driest spring winds create a steady, classic wildland fire risk similar to nearby Appalachian states.

The Eastern Shore's coastal plain is a different problem entirely: flat marsh, farmland and low-lying fields where fires burn through grass and organic soils rather than mountain forest. Dorchester County's marshland, in particular, can smolder for extended periods and flare back up after crews believe a fire is out.

Central Maryland adds a third pattern. The 2023 Owings Mills fire burned roughly 700 acres of the Soldiers Delight Natural Environment Area in Baltimore County — a nationally rare serpentine barren landscape — and became, according to Baltimore County Fire Chief Joanne Rund, the largest fire battled in the county in about 50 years.

What are the largest wildfires in Maryland history?

The Maryland Forest Service does not publish a single ranked list of the state's largest wildfires by acreage, and this guide will not invent one. What is verifiable comes from Forest Service annual reports and news coverage of specific incidents.

For scale, NIFC recorded 77,850 wildfires and 5,131,474 acres burned nationwide in 2025 — Maryland's entire worst recent year would still be a small fraction of a single large Western fire. The comparison that matters more locally: 2025's acreage was more than eight times 2024's.

What weather drives Maryland fire danger?

Four National Weather Service forecast offices cover Maryland's fire weather: Sterling, Virginia (LWX) for most of the state including the western counties, Mount Holly, New Jersey (PHI) for the upper Eastern Shore (Cecil, Kent, Queen Anne's, Talbot and Caroline counties), Wakefield, Virginia (AKQ) for the lower Eastern Shore (Dorchester, Wicomico, Worcester and Somerset counties), and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (PBZ) providing backup fire weather coverage for far-western Garrett County.

A Fire Weather Watch or Red Flag Warning is issued only when three conditions are met concurrently: 10-hour fuels at or below 8 percent moisture, sustained surface winds of 20 mph or greater, and relative humidity below 30 percent. NWS offices coordinate with the Maryland Forest Service's State Duty Officer to confirm fuel moisture before issuing either headline.

10-hour fuel moisture

8 percent or lower

Sustained wind

20 mph or greater

Relative humidity

Below 30 percent

Fire Weather Watch

Issued 12–48 hours ahead of expected Red Flag conditions

Red Flag Warning

Issued within about 12 hours, occasionally up to 24

Over Garrett and Allegany's mountainous terrain, forecasts account for elevation directly: high-elevation sites run roughly 5 degrees cooler per 1,000 feet than valley forecasts, which is why fire officers there are encouraged to request site-specific spot forecasts rather than relying on the county-wide routine forecast alone.

How did arson drive Maryland's 2025 wildfire numbers?

Arson caused only 19 of Maryland's 172 wildfires in 2025 — far fewer incidents than the 74 fires sparked by debris burning — but those 19 fires burned 6,612 acres, about 81 percent of the year's total statewide acreage. Debris burning, by contrast, caused 74 fires but only about 152 acres.

Most of the arson acreage burned on the Eastern Shore, concentrated in Dorchester County during February and March 2025, where warm, dry weather let fires spread quickly across marsh and non-forest land that had otherwise seen relatively few fires in prior years.

In response, Maryland foresters and partners completed 150 prescribed burns covering about 7,418 acres in 2025, concentrated on the Eastern Shore, as a direct mitigation strategy against the kind of fuel buildup that let the arson fires grow so large.

How does open burning work in Maryland?

All open burning in Maryland is regulated under Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) air quality rules, and a burning permit is required for all open burning except small recreational campfires and outdoor cooking fires.

A separate Maryland DNR Forest Service permit is required for any open-air burning in woodlands, within 200 feet of woodlands, or near flammable material that could carry fire into woodland; burns covering more than one acre need a written burn plan.

1. Contact your local Maryland Forest Service office for a woodland open-air burning permit if burning in or within 200 feet of woodland.
2. Build a fire break at least 10 feet wide, completely clear of flammable material, around the burn site.
3. Have adequate personnel and equipment on hand to prevent the fire from escaping, and keep at least one responsible person on site until the last spark is out.
4. Burn only between 4 p.m. and midnight, unless the ground is snow-covered.
5. Check for a county or statewide burn ban — Maryland DNR has issued statewide bans, most recently in November 2024, that override permits entirely.

Eleven counties and Baltimore City — Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Calvert, Carroll, Cecil, Charles, Frederick, Harford, Howard, Montgomery and Prince George's — prohibit open burning outright every year from June 1 through August 31, regardless of permits, with narrow exceptions for public officers and agricultural burning.

How do evacuations work in Maryland?

Maryland does not use a Ready-Set-Go or numbered evacuation-level system for wildfire. Evacuation decisions are made locally by county fire and police officials, with the Maryland Department of Emergency Management coordinating support when an incident exceeds local capacity.

The 2023 Owings Mills fire is the clearest recent test case: as the eight-alarm fire spread through Soldiers Delight, Baltimore County officials ordered roughly 30 families to evacuate while about 200 firefighters from multiple jurisdictions worked the line, backed by Maryland National Guard helicopters making more than a dozen 600-gallon water drops.

"They knew immediately this was not your typical brush fire," said Elise Armacost, Baltimore County Fire Department Public Information Officer, of the response. Fire Chief Joanne Rund added: "We've got to make sure that we keep what is currently burning under control" — guidance that applied directly to the families told to leave their homes that night.

How do you track a Maryland fire in under a minute?

Because Maryland's fire risk splits between mountain forest, coastal marsh and suburban brush, a live map has to work the same way in all three landscapes: separate the routine from the escalating fast.

1. Open the live fire map and filter to Maryland, or use "fires near me" to list incidents within a set distance of your location.
2. Check the probability tier. A low tier with no linked NIFC record during a scheduled burn window often means a prescribed fire or permitted burn rather than an emergency.
3. Compare "Last NIFC update," "Last satellite heat" and "Last GOES heat" — fresh heat with no official record, especially in Eastern Shore marshland, is worth a second look.
4. Check acres and containment, and note whether a Red Flag Warning or Fire Weather Watch is in effect for your NWS zone.
5. Sign up for your county's emergency alert system, since Maryland issues evacuation orders locally rather than through one statewide wildfire alert level.
6. Use the directions-away links if you need to leave quickly, and follow instructions from local fire and police officials over any other source.

Our fire tracker near me guide explains how the "fires near me" filter and proximity alerts work, and the current wildfires guide covers how to read containment and personnel numbers on any incident nationwide.

Smoke from a Maryland marsh or brush fire can linger for days, particularly from a slow-smoldering Eastern Shore fire. On the EPA's Air Quality Index, Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups starts at 101 and Unhealthy — where some of the general public may see health effects — starts at 151, so check a live AQI source if you can see or smell smoke.

FAQ about the Maryland fire map