Tennessee Fire Map: Track Tennessee Wildfires Live in 2026

A Tennessee fire map has to answer two different questions: how big is today's wildfire, and could it behave like the one that reached Gatlinburg in November 2016. The Tennessee Division of Forestry logs about 1,000 wildland fires and roughly 18,000 acres burned in a typical year, and more than 90 percent are human-caused.

What does a Tennessee fire map show right now?

A Tennessee 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 live view. US Wildfire Tracker shows all four free in any browser, refreshing automatically every few minutes while the tab stays open.

Most Tennessee wildfires are small: the state's annual average is about 1,000 fires burning roughly 18,000 acres, which works out to under 20 acres per fire. But the state's worst modern disaster showed how fast that can change — the Chimney Tops 2 fire grew from about 500 acres to roughly 17,000 acres in a single night once extreme wind arrived.

That gap between the typical fire and the rare extreme one is exactly what a probability-scored map is built to handle. 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, and hides weak signals below 25 percent probability by default.

When is Tennessee's wildfire season?

Tennessee runs two statutory fire seasons: spring, February 15 through May 15, ending when the forest canopy "greens up," and fall, October 15 through December 15, starting with leaf drop. Wildland fires can occur outside those windows, but the two seasons set both the state's operational readiness and its burn-permit calendar.

"Tennessee experiences about 1,000 wildland fires each year, burning roughly 18,000 acres, and more than 90% are caused by humans," said State Forester Heather Slayton ahead of the 2025 fall season. The same warning is repeated each October and February as the Division of Forestry shifts into its higher-readiness posture.

That two-season rhythm is common across the southern Appalachians. Our North Carolina fire map guide and Georgia fire map guide describe a similar spring-and-fall pattern in neighboring states, while the South Carolina wildfire guide covers the coastal end of the same regional fire season.

Which agencies fight wildfires in Tennessee?

The Tennessee Division of Forestry, part of the Tennessee Department of Agriculture, is the lead wildland firefighting agency statewide. Founded in 1914, it protects the state's forest resource through fire readiness, wildfire suppression, training volunteer firefighters and combating arson.

Inside Great Smoky Mountains National Park and other federal land, the National Park Service and other federal agencies manage their own suppression. The Tennessee Emergency Management Agency — renamed the Tennessee Emergency Management Authority (TEMA) on July 1, 2026 — coordinates statewide disaster response, shelters and mutual aid when a wildfire threatens lives or property at scale, as it did during the 2016 Gatlinburg fires.

Interagency mobilization for major incidents runs through the Southern Area Coordination Center in Atlanta, which allocates crews, aircraft and incident management teams across the Southeast, including Tennessee.

Where do Tennessee wildfires usually burn?

Tennessee's fire risk concentrates in the east, where the Cumberland Plateau and the Great Smoky Mountains carry steep, forested terrain right up against towns and cabins. That wildland-urban interface — narrow mountain roads, dense tree cover and homes built into ridgelines — is what turned a remote park fire into a community disaster in 2016.

Fall is the higher-risk season in these mountains specifically, because leaf drop opens the canopy to wind and sun at the same time cured leaf litter blankets the ground. Middle and West Tennessee see fire risk too, mostly grass and woodland fires tied to debris burning, but without the steep terrain that complicates access in the east.

What happened in the 2016 Chimney Tops 2 fire?

The Chimney Tops 2 fire began November 23, 2016, at about 5:30 p.m. in the Chimney Tops area of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, in steep terrain with vertical cliffs and narrow rocky ridges. The National Park Service determined it was human-caused; two juveniles were arrested for Aggravated Arson in connection with the fire.

For five days the fire stayed small and remote. That changed on November 28, when exceptional drought and extreme wind caused it to grow rapidly. The National Weather Service advised of sustained winds of 40 to 50 mph that evening, with gusts up to 87 mph recorded at the Cove Mountain weather station before it lost power around 9 p.m. — wind strong enough to down power lines in Gatlinburg and throw embers that started new fires well ahead of the original perimeter.

The National Park Service's own figures put the fire at approximately 11,000 acres inside the park, about 2.1 percent of its more than 500,000 acres, with roughly 6,000 additional acres burning outside the park in Sevier County. No structures inside the park were destroyed by fire, though wind caused damage.

The fatality and structure figures come from the joint city-county after-action review, not from the National Park Service, because nearly all of the loss of life and property occurred outside the park in Gatlinburg and unincorporated Sevier County. Tennessee's state government separately confirmed 14 wildfire-related fatalities in its own disaster-assistance announcement, distinct from two further deaths in unrelated storms the following day.

An independent seven-member interagency review commissioned by the National Park Service, conducted between February and April 2017, found preparedness and planning weaknesses in the park's response but no evidence of negligence. "We see this report on the Chimney Tops 2 Fire as the first steps of a journey that will help us institutionalize the lessons learned from the tragic Sevier County fires," said Bill Kaage, the NPS Fire and Aviation Division Chief who commissioned the review.

How do burn permits work in Tennessee?

A statewide burn permit from the Tennessee Division of Forestry is required for any size leaf, brush or debris pile during both fire hazard seasons — February 15 through May 15 and October 15 through December 15. Permits are free and must be obtained on the day of burning, either online at BurnSafeTN.org or the MyTN mobile app, or by phone at 877-350-BURN, seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Burning without a required permit is a Class C misdemeanor; leaving a permitted fire unattended is a Class B misdemeanor. Escaped debris burns are consistently cited by the Division of Forestry as the leading human cause of wildfires in the state.

What weather drives Tennessee fire danger?

Three National Weather Service offices issue fire weather forecasts for Tennessee: Morristown covers the east, including the Smoky Mountains region; Nashville, based in Old Hickory, covers Middle Tennessee; and Memphis covers the west. All three use the same statewide criteria for Fire Weather Watches and Red Flag Warnings.

Wind

Sustained 20-foot wind of 18 mph or greater.

Humidity

Relative humidity of 25 percent or less at the same time as the wind criterion.

Dryness

Less than 0.25 inch of rainfall over the preceding two days.

That combination — strong ridge-top wind, low humidity and cured fuel with no recent rain — is exactly what turned a small, remote fire into the Chimney Tops 2 disaster in a matter of hours on November 28, 2016.

How do evacuations work in Tennessee?

Tennessee does not publish a standardized statewide evacuation-level system for wildfire; evacuation instructions are issued locally, by county and municipal officials working with the sheriff and local fire departments. During the 2016 Gatlinburg fires, Sevier County officials ordered evacuations directly as the fire approached, coordinated with TEMA's state emergency operations center.

In practice, county emergency management pages and local alert systems are the authoritative source during an active fire. A live fire map is a situational-awareness tool for deciding whether to pay closer attention — not a substitute for an official evacuation order.

How do you read a Tennessee fire map fast?

In Tennessee the question that matters most is whether conditions match the pattern that turned Chimney Tops 2 into a firestorm: dry ground, rising wind and a fire already burning nearby.

1. Open the live fire map and filter to Tennessee, or use "fires near me" to list incidents within a set distance in miles of your location.
2. Check the probability tier first. A low-confidence detection with no NIFC record attached is often a permitted debris burn rather than a wildfire.
3. Open the fire and compare "Last NIFC update," "Last satellite heat" and "Last GOES heat" — mountain fires in steep terrain can outrun a stale perimeter within hours once wind arrives.
4. Check acres and containment together, and note whether the fire sits in the eastern mountains, where wildland-urban interface risk is highest.
5. Look for a Red Flag Warning polygon, and treat one seriously if you live in or near forested, steep terrain.
6. 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 behind each data layer in detail, and the wildfire tracking guide covers setting up alerts before a fire is close enough to see.

What does wildfire smoke do to Tennessee air quality?

Smoke from Tennessee wildfires is measured on the same EPA Air Quality Index used nationwide. During the November 2016 firestorm, dense smoke combined with the fire itself to reduce visibility across the Gatlinburg area at the same time high wind was already complicating evacuation and suppression.

Mountain terrain can trap smoke in valleys overnight even after wind dies down, which is why Tennessee's fire weather guidance treats sustained wind and low humidity together as the trigger for concern, rather than either alone.

FAQ about the Tennessee fire map