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

A Mississippi fire map has to make sense of a state that recorded 2,502 wildfires and 51,982 burned acres in 2024 alone, most of them started by escaped debris burns. In August 2026 a fast-moving woods fire near Bayou Cumbest in Jackson County burned 1,428 acres and forced evacuations along the coast.

What does a Mississippi fire map show right now?

A Mississippi 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 view. US Wildfire Tracker renders all of it free in any browser and refreshes automatically every few minutes while the tab stays open.

The Mississippi Forestry Commission is the only state agency responsible for responding to and suppressing wildfires statewide, and it reported 2,502 wildfires burning 51,982 acres in 2024, up from 1,070 fires and 19,803 acres the prior fiscal year. State Forester Russell Bozeman put the cause plainly: "It only takes one spark, and nine out of ten wildfires are caused by humans."

Mississippi's signal-to-noise problem is different from a western state's. Instead of lightning-started fires in remote terrain, most Mississippi ignitions start close to people — an escaped debris pile, a mower spark, a military training round on a Camp Shelby range. US Wildfire Tracker scores each satellite detection for whether an official NIFC record is linked, how fresh the perimeter is, and how recent the heat is, and hides weak signals below 25 percent probability by default.

The Bayou Cumbest fire that broke out near Pascagoula on August 16, 2026 shows why that matters: it grew from ignition to 1,428 acres and 65 percent containment within two days, prompting evacuations of the Orange Grove RV Park and homes between Chevron Road and Bayou Heron Road while degrading air quality across the Jackson County coast.

When is Mississippi's wildfire season?

Mississippi's damaging fires cluster in late winter and early spring, when hardwood leaf litter and cured grass carry fire easily and humidity drops behind cold fronts. The governor has formally recognized that pattern by declaring March as Mississippi Wildfire Prevention Month each year.

The record supports it. The Shoot House Fire ignited March 2, 2025; the Big Hungry Fire in Carroll County ran March 27–31, 2026; the Blue Stem Fire in Franklin County burned 2,031 acres starting March 13, 2025; and the Greene–Turner Road Fire burned 2,281 acres from March 18–23, 2025. Several smaller Perry County fires — Tiger Tank and Range 6 — also ignited in February 2026.

A second, drier-season risk shows up in late summer when drought builds. By August 18, 2026 the Keetch-Byram Drought Index read above 600 across most of Mississippi, with roughly half the state above 700 on the 0-to-800 scale, and six counties — Copiah, Franklin, Jefferson Davis, Lawrence, Simpson and Walthall — were under active burn bans. That drought window produced both the Bayou Cumbest fire and the Range 39 fire near Camp Shelby.

That two-peak pattern is shared across the Gulf South. Our Florida fire map guide and South Carolina wildfire guide describe similar spring peaks, while states covered on our Georgia fire map page combine the same late-winter fire season with a heavy prescribed-burning calendar.

Which agencies fight fires in Mississippi?

The Mississippi Forestry Commission runs wildland suppression statewide, dispatches 24/7 through a central number, issues burning permits and coordinates directly with county governments on burn bans. Its central dispatch line, 1-833-MFC-FIRE, routes reports alongside 911.

Fire weather support comes from four National Weather Service forecast offices that cover different parts of the state — Jackson, Memphis, New Orleans/Slidell and Mobile — which the Forestry Commission pulls into a single predictive-services page alongside Keetch-Byram Drought Index readings and Remote Automated Weather Station data.

Mississippi also sits inside a named interagency structure: NWS forecasters coordinate fire weather watches and Red Flag Warnings with state forestry agencies and the U.S. Forest Service through the Interagency Coordination Centers of Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi. When a fire outgrows local and state resources, the Southern Area Coordination Center can mobilize crews, aircraft and incident management teams from across the southeastern states, and the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency coordinates state-level response during declared emergencies.

Where do Mississippi wildfires usually burn?

South Mississippi's pine timberland carries the most fire. Perry County, home to the Camp Shelby Joint Forces Training Center, has produced a cluster of large 2025–2026 fires — Fixed Wing, Tiger Tank, Range 6, Range 39, the Shoot House Fire and the Smoke Show Fire — in longleaf and slash pine country crossed by military training ranges.

The De Soto National Forest covers roughly 518,000 acres of pine forest in that same south Mississippi belt, and the Bienville and Homochitto National Forests add roughly 178,000 and 192,000 acres farther north and southwest. The U.S. Forest Service has planted millions of longleaf pine seedlings across those three forests as part of a restoration push that depends on regular low-intensity fire to control competing brush.

North and central Mississippi burn differently. The Big Hungry Fire in Carroll County spread through downed timber left by a January ice storm and 2023 tornado damage — heavy, dried fuel loads rather than open pine flatwoods — and threatened 38 homes and two churches before crews reached 90 percent containment.

The Gulf Coast adds a third pattern: marsh and woods fires like Bayou Cumbest in Jackson County, where wind-driven fire near populated shoreline communities moves fast and pushes smoke over towns like Pascagoula rather than staying contained to remote timberland.

What are the largest wildfires in Mississippi history?

Mississippi's largest fires on record are recent and cluster in the pine country around Camp Shelby. The Shoot House Fire ignited and was contained the same day, March 2, 2025, inside the Camp Shelby Joint Forces Training Center in Perry County, burning 6,082 acres and causing an estimated $18,000 in damage — the largest wildfire in state history.

The Big Hungry Fire, which threatened homes near County Roads 163 and 360 before crews moved into mop-up, was called the second-largest wildfire in Mississippi history when it reached 90 percent containment on March 31, 2026 — a rank the Smoke Show Fire, still active and uncontained in Perry County that August, had by then overtaken.

For national context, NIFC's record shows 77,850 wildfires and 5,131,474 acres burned across the United States in 2025. Mississippi's roughly 2,500 fires a year are a small share of that national count, but the acreage per fire — Shoot House alone burned more than three times Mississippi's average annual total for an entire fiscal year just a decade ago — shows how quickly a single ignition can dominate a season.

What weather drives Mississippi fire danger?

NWS Jackson's published Red Flag Warning criteria for Mississippi are relative humidity of 25 percent or less combined with sustained 20-foot winds of 15 mph or greater. A Fire Weather Watch is issued when those conditions are expected 12 to 72 hours out; a Red Flag Warning means they are occurring or imminent.

Underneath those short-term triggers sits drought, tracked with the Keetch-Byram Drought Index on its 0-to-800 scale. The Mississippi Forestry Commission monitors KBDI alongside Remote Automated Weather Stations and NWS seven-day forecasts to decide where to pre-position crews.

Cold-front passages are the classic spring trigger: dry air moving in behind a front combines with gusty winds and cured vegetation to create, in NWS Jackson's words, conditions "favorable for explosive fire growth and rapid wildfire spread." That combination produced a statewide Red Flag Warning on March 28, 2026, in effect from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.

How do burn permits and prescribed fire work in Mississippi?

Mississippi's timber economy depends on regular prescribed fire, and the state regulates it through the Mississippi Prescribed Burning Act. Under Mississippi Code Section 49-19-307, a prescribed burn must be supervised by at least one certified prescribed burn manager, requires a written, notarized prescription prepared in advance, and needs a burning permit from the Mississippi Forestry Commission before ignition.

Outside prescribed burning, MFC permits cover any fire set for a recognized agricultural or forestry purpose and are issued based on the day's fire weather forecast through the commission's online system. Permits do not cover residential, land-clearing or storm-debris burning, which fall under local ordinances instead.

Burn bans work differently from permits. A County Board of Supervisors requests a ban and the Mississippi Forestry Commission approves it; the local sheriff's department enforces it, and knowingly violating one is a misdemeanor carrying a fine of $100 to $500. Bans expire automatically at midnight on their stated date, and wind can carry embers from an illegal fire up to half a mile.

MFC Fire Chief Randy Giachelli described how quickly the margin for error narrows in dry weather: "Right now, one spark is all it takes to start a wildfire. Something routine like burning debris can have serious consequences when vegetation is this dry." Because prescribed and escaped fire produce the same satellite heat signature, treat any south Mississippi hotspot without a linked MFC record as unconfirmed until you check current burn ban status for that county.

How do evacuations work in Mississippi?

Mississippi does not use a graduated Ready-Set-Go or numbered evacuation-level system for wildfire. The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency's published guidance is binary: residents either receive an evacuation order and leave, or are told to shelter in place, closing doors, windows and outside air intakes and monitoring local radio for further instruction.

Local sheriffs and county emergency management offices issue the actual evacuation notices during a wildfire. When the Bayou Cumbest fire threatened Jackson County homes in August 2026, evacuations covered the Orange Grove RV Park south of Highway 90 and scattered homes between Chevron Road and Bayou Heron Road. When the Big Hungry Fire burned in Carroll County that March, roughly ten homes near County Road 163 and County Road 360 were evacuated as crews worked the perimeter.

MEMA's core instruction is not to delay: "If an evacuation is ordered, do not delay. Follow the instructions from local authorities, stay prepared, and act swiftly." That guidance applies across hazard types in Mississippi, wildfire included, and county-level alerts remain the authoritative source for routes and shelter locations.

How do you track Mississippi fires in under a minute?

The Mississippi workflow is about separating routine prescribed and agricultural fire from a genuine escaped wildfire, and about catching a coastal or timberland ignition before it reaches a subdivision or RV park.

1. Open the live fire map and filter to Mississippi, or use "fires near me" to list incidents within a set distance of your location.
2. Check the probability tier first. A low-confidence detection in Perry County pine timber with no MFC record attached is often training-range or prescribed activity, especially outside a burn ban.
3. Open the fire and compare "Last NIFC update," "Last satellite heat" and "Last GOES heat." Fresh heat against a stale or missing official record means conditions are moving faster than the paperwork.
4. Check acres and containment together, not acres alone — a fire holding steady acreage with climbing containment is stabilizing.
5. Look for an active Red Flag Warning polygon over the same ground before assuming tomorrow will look like today.
6. For evacuation and road status, go to your county sheriff or emergency management office, and use the map's directions-away links if you need to leave.

The general mechanics behind those data layers, including how often each feed refreshes, are covered in our fire tracker guide, and the same read-the-tiers-first approach applies to any state — our wildfire tracking guide walks through it step by step.

What does wildfire smoke do to Mississippi air quality?

Coastal and timberland fires both push smoke into populated areas quickly because Mississippi's fires burn close to towns rather than in remote wilderness. The Bayou Cumbest fire degraded air quality across Pascagoula in August 2026 even while containment climbed, and smoke from the Smoke Show Fire in Perry County lingered over surrounding communities for weeks while the fire remained active.

The EPA's Air Quality Index translates smoke concentration into health guidance on a six-category scale. At 101 to 150, members of sensitive groups — people with asthma, older adults, children — may experience health effects even though the general public is less affected. At 201 to 300, the index crosses into a health alert where the risk is increased for everyone, sensitive or not.

Our forest fire smoke tracker guide covers how to read hourly AQI alongside an active fire, which matters in a state where a coastal town can go from clear skies to sensitive-group-unhealthy smoke in an afternoon, as Pascagoula residents saw during the Bayou Cumbest fire.

Frequently asked questions about the Mississippi fire map