US Wildfire Tracker
New Hampshire Fire Map: Track NH Wildfires Live in 2026
A New Hampshire fire map mostly shows small burn-permit fires and roadside ignitions in a short spring window, with a smaller fall peak that turned severe in 2025. The NH Forest Protection Bureau logged 123 wildfires burning 125 acres in 2024, then saw both counts climb again in 2025 during the state's driest summer since 1895.
What does a New Hampshire fire map show right now?
A New Hampshire fire map fuses official NIFC incident records and WFIGS perimeters, 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.
New Hampshire's fires are almost all small. The NH Forest Protection Bureau recorded 123 wildfires burning 125 acres in 2024 — roughly one acre per fire on average — because most starts are caught quickly by local fire departments and Forest Fire Wardens working under the same permit system that is meant to prevent them in the first place.
That makes a live map here mostly a verification tool: is a nearby smoke column a permitted burn, a small roadside fire already knocked down, or something that has escaped containment. The probability tier is what separates a routine call from a fire worth watching.
When is New Hampshire's wildfire season?
New Hampshire wildfires can start any time the ground is free of snow, but two windows matter most. The greatest peak runs from late March or early April through mid-May, when spring sun dries last year's fine fuels before green-up shades the forest floor, according to the National Weather Service's fire weather operations plan for New Hampshire.
A second, smaller peak normally follows in October, after leaves fall and dry out but before late-fall storms dampen the ground. In 2025 that fall window turned unusually severe: August and September saw a tenfold increase in both wildfire occurrences and acres burned compared with the same months in 2024, driven by the state's driest summer on record since 1895.
That statewide ban ran from September 22 to October 29, 2025, and covered both open burning and smoking in the woods. The same rhythm — a sharp spring peak, a smaller autumn one — shows up across the border in our North Carolina fire map guide, though North Carolina's spring window is longer and its fires are far more numerous.
Which agencies fight fires in New Hampshire?
The NH Forest Protection Bureau, part of the Division of Forests and Lands within the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, coordinates wildfire prevention and suppression statewide, working through local Forest Fire Wardens in every town who issue permits and lead initial attack alongside local and volunteer fire departments.
Interagency mobilization for larger incidents runs through the NIFC Eastern Area Coordination Center, which coordinates crews and aircraft across the Northeast when a fire outgrows state resources. The National Weather Service office in Gray, Maine (GYX) provides fire-weather forecasts and Red Flag Warnings for New Hampshire, coordinating directly with the Forest Protection Bureau before any warning is issued.
| Organization | Role |
|---|---|
| NH Forest Protection Bureau | Statewide wildfire prevention and suppression coordination, fire danger ratings, under the Division of Forests and Lands |
| Local Forest Fire Wardens | Issue burn permits town by town and lead local initial attack, per RSA 227-L |
| Local and volunteer fire departments | First response, structure protection and mutual aid on most calls |
| NWS Gray (GYX) | Fire-weather forecasts, Red Flag Warnings and Fire Weather Watches, coordinated with the Forest Protection Bureau |
| NIFC Eastern Area Coordination Center | Interagency mobilization of crews, aircraft and incident management teams for larger fires |
Where do New Hampshire wildfires usually burn?
Most New Hampshire wildfires start near where people are: escaped debris burns, roadsides and the wildland-urban interface where houses back onto forest. Debris and open burning are consistently the leading determined cause year after year, accounting for 108 of the causes identified in 2024, according to the Forest Protection Bureau.
Geographically, fire activity is not evenly spread. In the unusually dry 2025 season, Carroll County in the eastern Lakes Region and White Mountains foothills recorded the most individual wildfires, while Cheshire County in the southwest recorded the most burned acreage, department statistics show.
New Hampshire is the second most forested state in the country, and its wildland-urban interface has grown as development pushes into wooded areas — a trend the Forest Protection Bureau says increases the odds that any wildland fire reaches homes, outbuildings or other structures. In 2024 alone, 37 structures were threatened and four were destroyed by wildfires statewide.
What are the largest wildfires in New Hampshire history?
New Hampshire does not publish an annually updated ranked list of its largest individual wildfires. The two events that stand out in state fire history both come from the mid-20th century, before modern suppression resources existed.
| Fire | Year | Acres | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Marlow-Stoddard Fire | 1941 | About 27,000 | New Hampshire's largest recorded single fire; started at a Marlow sawmill processing hurricane-salvaged lumber and burned for four days until a freak May 1 snowfall extinguished it |
| Mount Sunapee Fire | 1947 | Part of ~20,000 statewide | Lightning-caused fire that burned about eight miles of the Sunapee ridge and approached within two miles of Goshen village during New Hampshire's worst fire season on record |
Statewide, the October 1947 outbreak burned roughly 20,000 acres across New Hampshire in one month, part of the same regional drought and wind event that devastated Maine the same autumn. Crews even tried experimental dry-ice cloud seeding from B-17 bombers on the Sunapee fire before it was finally controlled by Halloween. Nothing in the modern record — 2024's 125 acres or 2025's elevated but still modest total — approaches either event.
What weather drives New Hampshire fire danger?
New Hampshire's Red Flag criteria, set jointly by the NH Forest Protection Bureau and NWS Gray, are met when the average of 1-hour and 10-hour fuel moistures falls below 10 percent, combined with relative humidity under 30 percent and frequent gusts or sustained winds above 25 mph for three or more hours — the same criteria used across the Gray and Caribou forecast areas covering Maine.
- Fuel moisture
- Mean of 1-hour and 10-hour fuels below 10 percent
- Humidity
- Relative humidity under 30 percent
- Wind
- Frequent gusts or sustained winds above 25 mph for 3+ hours
- Coordination
- Warnings are issued only after the Forest Protection Bureau and NWS Gray jointly confirm both weather and fuel conditions
Drought sharply raises the stakes of that weather. A Dartmouth College earth sciences professor, Erich Osterberg, noted that the exceptionally dry summer of 2025 ran counter to the Northeast's longer-term trend toward wetter conditions — a reminder that a single severe season can still overwhelm an otherwise typical climate pattern in a state built for wet forests, not dry ones.
How do burn permits work in New Hampshire?
Under state law (RSA 227-L:17), New Hampshire requires a written fire permit for all outside burning unless the ground is completely covered with snow — one of the strictest year-round permit requirements in New England. Permits come from the local Forest Fire Warden or fire department in the town where the fire will be kindled, or online through nhfirepermit.com.
Even with a permit, burning is not allowed between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. unless it is raining, and a warden can suspend permits entirely when fire danger is high. Violating the permit law, or recklessly starting a fire that endangers woodlands, is a misdemeanor punishable by up to a $2,000 fine, up to one year in jail, or both.
In 2024, 77 unpermitted fires had been reported as of December 1 — a reminder that despite the strict law, escaped and illegal debris burns remain the state's single biggest wildfire cause. During a declared statewide burn ban, like the one in effect from September 22 to October 29, 2025, all outdoor burning and even smoking in the woods is prohibited regardless of any permit already issued.
How do evacuations work in New Hampshire?
New Hampshire has no statewide Ready-Set-Go or numbered evacuation-level system for wildfire. Because the state's fires are small and typically contained quickly by local departments, evacuation orders are rare and, when needed, are issued locally by fire chiefs, police or county emergency management rather than through a single statewide protocol.
During an active wildfire, the NH Forest Protection Bureau's incident updates and your local fire department are the authoritative sources for road closures and any evacuation guidance. Hanover Fire Chief Michael Gilbert has emphasized basic outdoor-burning safety that applies statewide: keep any permitted fire well clear of anything combustible, including your own house.
If you are near an active fire, follow instructions from local officials rather than assuming a visible smoke column requires you to leave — but always comply immediately with any evacuation order that is issued.
How do you track New Hampshire fires in under a minute?
Because New Hampshire fires are usually small, fast-attacked and permit-adjacent, the goal of a quick map check is context — is this heat signal a legal burn, an escaped debris fire, or something growing — rather than tracking a slow-moving front.
- Open the live fire map and filter to New Hampshire, or use "fires near me" to see incidents within a set distance in miles.
- Check the probability tier first. A low tier with no linked NIFC record is often a permitted burn already reported to the local warden.
- Compare "Last NIFC update," "Last satellite heat" and "Last GOES heat" — fresh heat with no official record yet is common for New Hampshire's fast-breaking small fires.
- Check for an active Red Flag Warning before planning any burning of your own, since New Hampshire law bans outdoor burning statewide during a declared burn ban regardless of any permit held.
- Note the county — 2025 showed Carroll County with more individual fires and Cheshire County with more burned acreage, so location changes what a detection likely means.
- For any evacuation guidance, follow your local fire department or county emergency management channel, and use the app's directions-away links if you need to leave.
Our fire tracker guide explains how each data layer's latency works, and the wildfire tracking guide covers how to compare a state-level view like New Hampshire's against the national picture.
What does wildfire smoke do to New Hampshire air quality?
New Hampshire's own wildfires are usually too small to affect regional air quality on their own, but the state is regularly exposed to smoke transported from much larger fires burning in Canada, which can degrade air quality even when no fire is burning anywhere nearby.
On the EPA's Air Quality Index, a reading of 101 to 150 means sensitive groups — including people with asthma, heart or lung disease, children and older adults — may experience health effects, while 151 to 200 means some members of the general public may be affected too. A smoke or air-quality overlay is often more relevant day to day in New Hampshire than the location of any single fire.
Our forest fire smoke tracker guide explains how to read smoke plume forecasts alongside a live fire map, which matters in New Hampshire because most of the smoke residents breathe during a bad week did not originate in the state at all.
New Hampshire tests whether a fire map can stay useful when almost every detection is small. We would rather show a low-probability heat signal near a town and label it clearly than hide it, because in a state where debris burning is the leading determined cause year after year, the difference between a legal burn and an escaped one is exactly what a resident checking the map wants to know.The US Wildfire Tracker team — builders of the wildfire-map.org live map and Chrome extension
Frequently asked questions about the New Hampshire fire map
When is New Hampshire's wildfire season?
The greatest peak runs from late March or early April through mid-May, before green-up shades the forest floor. A smaller secondary peak usually follows in October after leaf fall. In 2025 that fall window turned severe, with a tenfold increase in fires and acres burned in August and September compared with 2024, during the driest summer on record since 1895.
Are New Hampshire wildfires mostly human-caused?
Yes. Debris and open burning are the leading determined cause of New Hampshire wildfires year after year, accounting for 108 of the causes identified in 2024, according to the NH Forest Protection Bureau. That is why the state's strict, year-round burn permit law is central to preventing new fires.
Do I need a burn permit in New Hampshire?
Yes. Under RSA 227-L:17, a written fire permit is required for all outside burning unless the ground is completely covered with snow. Permits come from your local Forest Fire Warden or fire department, or online at nhfirepermit.com. Burning is barred between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. unless it is raining, even with a valid permit.
What was New Hampshire's largest wildfire?
The Marlow-Stoddard Fire of 1941 burned about 27,000 acres over four days before a freak snowfall extinguished it, making it the largest single fire in the state's recorded history. The October 1947 outbreak burned roughly 20,000 acres statewide in one month, including the lightning-caused Mount Sunapee Fire, during New Hampshire's worst fire season on record.
What triggers a Red Flag Warning in New Hampshire?
The NH Forest Protection Bureau and NWS Gray jointly issue a Red Flag Warning when the average of 1-hour and 10-hour fuel moistures falls below 10 percent, combined with relative humidity under 30 percent and frequent gusts or sustained winds above 25 mph for three or more hours. Both weather and fuel conditions must be confirmed before a warning is issued.
Does New Hampshire use evacuation levels like the West does?
No. New Hampshire has no statewide Ready-Set-Go or numbered evacuation-level system. Because most fires stay small, evacuation orders are rare and are issued locally by fire departments, police or county emergency management, with guidance during an active incident coming from the NH Forest Protection Bureau and local officials.
Is US Wildfire Tracker an official source for New Hampshire fires?
No. It is a free live map fusing NIFC incident records and perimeters, NASA VIIRS and MODIS detections, NOAA GOES heat and National Weather Service alerts, with no account required. Satellite detections can lag by minutes to hours, so follow the NH Forest Protection Bureau and local fire officials for authoritative instructions and any evacuation orders.
Track New Hampshire fires in real time
Filter to New Hampshire, check the probability tier before assuming a heat signal is a wildfire, and see NWS Red Flag Warnings over the same ground.