US Wildfire Tracker
North Carolina Fire Map: Track NC Wildfires Live in 2026
A North Carolina fire map covers two very different fire problems in one state: peat fires that smolder for months in the coastal plain, and steep mountain fires now burning through Hurricane Helene debris. The N.C. Forest Service logged 6,845 wildfires and 31,746 acres in 2025 alone.
What does a North Carolina fire map show now?
A North Carolina 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 shows all four free in any browser, refreshing automatically every few minutes while the tab stays open.
North Carolina's fire signature is many small ignitions rather than a few enormous ones. The N.C. Forest Service recorded 6,845 wildfires in 2025 but only 31,746 acres — an average under five acres per fire, because initial attack from 100 county forest ranger organizations usually catches them small.
That changes the question a live map answers here. You are rarely asking whether a megafire will reach a city; you are usually asking whether the smoke column three miles away is a permitted debris burn, a prescribed burn or the one fire that escaped. The fire probability tier is what separates those cases.
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 industrial heat.
When is North Carolina's wildfire season?
North Carolina's busiest weeks run from late February through early May, before hardwood green-up shades the forest floor, with a second smaller peak in October and November after leaf fall. The N.C. Forest Service switches from monthly to weekly statewide fire danger assessments in March, April and early May — a fair proxy for where the agency expects trouble.
The 2026 spring shows the shape clearly. The Forest Service issued its spring wildfire season warning on February 23, 2026; rangers responded to 626 wildfires in the ten days from March 20; a statewide ban on open burning took effect at 6 p.m. on Saturday, March 28; the ban was lifted for 81 counties effective 8 a.m. May 3; and it came off the last 19 counties effective 8 a.m. May 8.
2025 followed the same rhythm. As of March 19, 2025, 1,040 wildfires had burned on state and private lands since March 1, and a statewide burn ban took effect on March 21.
That spring peak matches the rest of the Southeast. The South Carolina wildfire guide and our Georgia fire map guide describe the same seasonal window, while the Alaska fire map page shows a completely different June-July curve.
Which agencies fight wildfires in North Carolina?
The North Carolina Forest Service, part of the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, protects more than 18 million acres of forestland from wildfire, insects and disease. Its fire control program is managed cooperatively with all 100 counties, and county forest rangers coordinate hand crews, engines, dozers, tractor-plows, aircraft and pumps.
The same personnel who manage wildfires also assist private landowners with almost 14 million acres of forestland, which is unusual among state forestry agencies and explains why the burn permit system and the suppression system are run by the same rangers.
Federal partners handle their own ground — national forests, the Great Smoky Mountains and coastal national wildlife refuges, where the state's biggest peat fires have burned. Interagency mobilization runs through the Southern Area Coordination Center, and the National Weather Service supports both with fire weather forecasts and spot forecasts.
| Organization | Role |
|---|---|
| N.C. Forest Service | Wildland suppression on state and private land in all 100 counties, burn permits, burn bans, prescribed fire, arson investigation and the wildfire public viewer |
| County fire departments and EM | Structure protection, road closures and the evacuation instructions themselves |
| Federal land agencies | Suppression on national forests, national parks and coastal national wildlife refuges |
| Southern Area Coordination Center | Interagency mobilization of crews, aircraft and incident management teams |
| National Weather Service (AKQ, GSP, ILM, MHX, MRX, RAH, RNK) | Fire weather forecasts, Red Flag Warnings, Fire Weather Watches and spot forecasts; WFO Raleigh is the primary liaison to the N.C. Forest Service |
Where do North Carolina wildfires usually burn?
Two landscapes dominate the acreage. The eastern coastal plain holds deep pocosin peat, where fire burns downward into organic soil and can persist for months; peat in the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge averaged about three feet deep and reached fifteen feet in places, according to a peer-reviewed study of the 2008 Evans Road Fire in Environmental Health Perspectives.
The western mountains are the second problem: steep terrain, dry southwest-facing slopes and hardwood leaf litter, with homes scattered through the wildland urban interface. The fall of 2016 produced nearly 20 wildfires across western North Carolina that burned more than 46,000 acres and cost more than $15 million, with more than 2,000 personnel assigned, the state reported.
| Fire | Year | County | Acres |
|---|---|---|---|
| Evans Road | 2008 | Pocosin Lakes NWR, Hyde County area | More than 41,000 over three months |
| Tellico | 2016 | Macon and Swain | About 13,700 |
| Boteler | 2016 | Clay | About 8,967 |
| Maple Springs | 2016 | Graham | About 7,515 |
| Party Rock | 2016 | Rutherford | About 4,480 |
| Black Cove Complex | 2025 | Polk and Henderson | 7,670 total: Black Cove 3,502, Deep Woods 3,969, Fish Hook 199 |
Acreages for the 2016 fires are as reported by the state on November 16, 2016, while those fires were still burning. The Black Cove Complex figures are final totals from the N.C. Forest Service's closing update on April 3, 2025.
What are the biggest NC wildfire years on record?
The N.C. Forest Service keeps wildfire and acreage statistics back to 1928 on paper and 1970 in its computerized system. Measured by acres, the record year is 1963, with 277,946 acres from 4,826 fires — an order of magnitude above anything in the last three decades.
| Year | Fires | Acres |
|---|---|---|
| 1963 | 4,826 | 277,946 |
| 1985 | 7,320 | 162,473 |
| 1966 | 4,626 | 126,005 |
| 1986 | 5,580 | 113,479 |
| 1981 | 8,746 | 108,253 |
| 1967 | 5,501 | 100,445 |
| 2011 | 5,265 | 63,547 |
| 2008 | 4,378 | 49,929 |
Modern years look small by comparison: 20,126 acres in 2022, 18,748 in 2023, 15,706 in 2024 and 31,746 in 2025. The two recent spikes, 2008 and 2011, are both peat fire years in the coastal plain rather than mountain fire years.
These totals cover fires under N.C. Forest Service jurisdiction, so federal-land acreage is not fully included. For national scale, NIFC recorded 77,850 wildfires and 5,131,474 acres across the United States in 2025.
How did Hurricane Helene change NC fire risk?
Hurricane Helene left western North Carolina with an enormous fuel load of dead and downed timber. The N.C. Forest Service says counties that suffered substantial forest damage during Helene remain especially vulnerable to wildfire because of dead and dying timber contributing to an excessive debris and fuel load.
The mechanism is not only more fuel. Loss of tree canopy means more ground cover receives direct sunlight, which accelerates the rate at which fuels dry out — so post-hurricane stands reach burning conditions faster after rain than intact forest does.
That played out in March 2025 on the Black Cove Complex in Polk and Henderson counties, where Helene debris and rugged terrain posed challenges for containment on all three fires. The state has since launched a Disaster Mitigation Program offering no-cost wildfire risk reduction treatments to eligible landowners in 39 federally declared disaster counties.
North Carolina is where we learned to keep the perimeter and the heat timestamps visually separate. A pocosin fire can hold the same official acreage for six weeks while VIIRS keeps painting fresh heat inside it, and a Helene-damaged slope can go from quiet to running in a single dry afternoon. Averaging those signals into one confident number would hide exactly the thing a resident needs to see, so we show both and label which is older.The US Wildfire Tracker team — builders of the wildfire-map.org live map and Chrome extension
What weather drives North Carolina fire danger?
North Carolina's Red Flag Warning rules are unusually explicit. Under the state's fire weather annual operating plan, two or more of four weather criteria must be occurring or expected, in addition to high or greater fire danger as assessed by the natural resource agencies.
- Criterion 1
- Relative humidity of 25 percent or less.
- Criterion 2
- Sustained 20-foot wind of 20 mph or greater, or gusts to 30 mph. WFO Morristown uses sustained winds of 18 mph or greater.
- Criterion 3
- Dry lightning.
- Criterion 4
- A significant wind shift during times of active fire suppression.
- Plus
- High, Very High or Extreme fire danger, as assessed by the natural resource agency.
Below that threshold, the National Weather Service can issue Fire Danger Statements when relative humidity is within 5 percent of red flag criteria (30 percent or lower) and 20-foot winds or gusts are within 5 mph of criteria, with low fuel moisture confirmed by land managers.
Seven forecast offices serve North Carolina — Raleigh, Newport/Morehead City, Wilmington, Greenville-Spartanburg, Morristown, Blacksburg and Wakefield — so a red flag headline may cover only part of the state. The state also tracks the Keetch-Byram Drought Index and a Low Visibility Occurrence Risk Index for smoke on roadways.
How do burn permits and burn bans work in NC?
Burn permits are free and required for most open burning of natural vegetation. In most counties a permit is required between midnight and 4 p.m. for any open burn more than 100 feet from an occupied dwelling; in high hazard counties a permit is always required for open burning more than 100 feet from an occupied dwelling, and land clearing burns over five acres need a special permit with additional safety conditions.
High hazard counties carry extra rules: prevailing winds at ignition must blow away from towns, developments and major highways; burning must be at least 500 feet from any dwelling in a predominantly residential area unless occupants consent; initial burning may begin only between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m.; and no combustible material may be added between 4 p.m. and 8 a.m. the following day unless a ranger authorizes a deviation in writing.
A statewide burn ban overrides everything. When the Commissioner of Agriculture enacts a ban, open burning is prohibited regardless of whether a permit would normally be required, all existing permits are canceled and no new permits are issued. After the March 2026 ban, the Forest Service canceled nearly 18,000 digital burn permits issued during the preceding 30 days.
Prescribed fire runs on a separate track, governed by the North Carolina Prescribed Burning Act and the state Smoke Management Program, with a certified burner program and a prescribed burning cost share program for landowners.
How do evacuations work in North Carolina?
North Carolina does not use Ready-Set-Go or numbered evacuation levels statewide for wildfire. Evacuation instructions are issued by local governments — counties, municipalities and sheriffs — and the state's ReadyNC service simply relays what local governments have ordered.
Practically, that means your county emergency management page and your county's alert system are the authoritative sources during a fire, with the N.C. Forest Service situation report and public viewer providing incident-level context. Registration systems for re-entry are also handled at state and county level after major disasters.
Do not fly a drone near a wildfire. It is illegal, firefighting aircraft fly low in support of ground crews, and a drone that disrupts air operations puts firefighters and residents at risk.
How do you read a North Carolina fire map fast?
The whole point in North Carolina is to classify a heat signal quickly: escaped debris burn, prescribed burn, mountain fire in Helene debris, or a coastal peat fire that will be here next month.
- Open the live fire map and filter to North Carolina, or use "fires near me" to list incidents within a set distance in miles of your location.
- Check the probability tier first. Most NC detections are small and short-lived; a low tier with no NIFC record attached often means a permitted debris or prescribed burn.
- Open the fire and compare "Last NIFC update", "Last satellite heat" and "Last GOES heat". On a peat fire the perimeter will be far older than the heat.
- Read acres and containment together, and note the county — coastal plain and mountain fires behave nothing alike.
- Look for a Red Flag Warning polygon and check whether a statewide or county burn ban is in force before you plan any burning of your own.
- For evacuation status, go to your county emergency management channel, and use the directions-away links if you need to leave.
Our fire tracker guide explains the latency of each data layer in detail, and the forest fire smoke tracker guide covers what to do when smoke arrives without a visible fire.
Smoke is not a footnote in North Carolina. An EPA study of the June 2008 peat fire found a 37 percent increase in emergency room visits for symptoms of heart failure during a three-day period of dense smoke and the five days that followed, plus increases for asthma, COPD, pneumonia and bronchitis.
Peat fires burn slowly and close to the ground, so their smoke does not lift into the atmosphere easily. On the EPA Air Quality Index, 151 to 200 means some members of the general public may experience health effects, and 201 to 300 is a health alert where the risk is increased for everyone.
FAQ about the North Carolina fire map
When is North Carolina's wildfire season?
The main season runs from late February through early May, before hardwood green-up, with a second smaller peak in October and November after leaf fall. The N.C. Forest Service published its 2026 spring wildfire season advisory on February 23, and rangers responded to 626 wildfires in the ten days from March 20, 2026, which is a typical spring surge.
Are North Carolina wildfires human-caused?
Almost entirely. The N.C. Forest Service states that human activity is responsible for 99 percent of wildfires in the state, and that escaped yard debris burns account for nearly half of all wildfires. Other common causes are machine and vehicle use, dragging tow chains, arson and escaped campfires. That is why burn permits and burn bans are the state's primary tools.
Do I need a burn permit in North Carolina?
In most counties you need a permit for any open burn more than 100 feet from an occupied dwelling, between midnight and 4 p.m. In high hazard counties a permit is always required at that distance, and land clearing burns over five acres need a special permit. Permits are free from a N.C. Forest Service county office, an authorized permitting agent or online.
What happens during a statewide burn ban?
Open burning is prohibited regardless of whether a permit would normally be required, all existing permits are canceled and no new permits are issued. After the ban that took effect at 6 p.m. on March 28, 2026, the N.C. Forest Service canceled nearly 18,000 digital burn permits issued in the previous 30 days. Burning during a ban is prohibited by law.
Why do coastal North Carolina fires last so long?
They burn peat. Pocosin peat in the coastal plain averages about three feet deep and reaches fifteen feet in places, so fire moves below the surface where it is difficult to extinguish and can last for weeks or months. Peat fires burn slowly and close to the ground, so their smoke does not lift easily into the atmosphere and settles over nearby communities.
What triggers a Red Flag Warning in North Carolina?
Two or more of these must be occurring or expected, plus high or greater fire danger: relative humidity of 25 percent or less; sustained 20-foot winds of 20 mph or greater or gusts to 30 mph; dry lightning; or a significant wind shift during active fire suppression. WFO Morristown uses 18 mph for the wind criterion. The thresholds come from the state's fire weather annual operating plan.
Is US Wildfire Tracker an official source for NC fires?
No. It is a free live map that fuses NIFC incident records and perimeters, NASA VIIRS and MODIS detections, NOAA GOES heat detections and National Weather Service alerts, with no account required. Satellite detections can lag by minutes to hours, so follow the N.C. Forest Service and your county emergency management for authoritative instructions and evacuation orders.
Track North Carolina fires in real time
Filter to North Carolina, compare the official perimeter against the newest satellite heat, and see NWS fire-weather alerts over the same ground.