Wildfire Information

TO REPORT A WILDLAND FIRE – CALL (406) 758-5260 OR CALL 911

This is a collection of wildland fire information links, including prescribed burns, applicable to the Flathead and Kootenai National Forests and Glacier National Park. For Canadian wildfire information, see the group of links near the bottom of this page.

National Forest & Glacier National Park Fire Information – InciWeb:
https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/
https://www.fs.usda.gov/flathead/ – Flathead National Forest
https://www.fs.usda.gov/kootenai/ – Kootenai National Forest
https://www.nps.gov/glac/learn/nature/fire-information.htm – Glacier National Park

The InciWeb site is the official source for information about fires nationwide. Unfortunately, you must now zoom in on a US map to locate information for specific fires. If you are interested in information for your area, try clicking on the “find my location” crosshair icon. If you know a fire’s name, you can go more directly to its information by using the site’s search facility.

There are no longer InciWeb pages consolidating information for individual jurisdictions. If you want links to fires within a particular local jurisdiction, you can often find that information by visiting the organization’s website (see above). Note that smaller fires may not be listed on InciWeb.

Protip! Laurie Lapan passed along this handy tip for sorting through Inciweb listings: “For those looking to sort on InciWeb, I recently found this work-around meant for screen readers: https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/accessible-view/. Once there, you can sort the table by state to group the Montana incidents.”

Montana Fire Info  Page:
https://www.mtfireinfo.org/

An excellent one-stop web site for Montana wildfire information. The “Current Fire Info” dashboard is particularly useful: https://www.mtfireinfo.org/pages/current-fire-info.

National Fire Situational Awareness Page:
https://maps.nwcg.gov/sa/#/%3F/%3F/48.7056/-114.2967/11

Similar to the InciWeb page, this one shows all active fires, not just those with an InciWeb report. It also includes active fire perimeters and satellite fire detection. Click the crosshair icon to auto-zoom to your current location or pan-and-zoom to examine other regions.

Montana DNRC Interactive Wildland Fire Map
https://gis.dnrc.mt.gov/apps/firemap/

An interactive, pan and zoom  wildfire map maintained by the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation.

Current Wildfires – Montana (arcgis.com)
https://montana.maps.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/index.html?webmap=5850f59388624e90adcb834fc8c47e12

Another very useful interactive, pan and zoom  wildfire map. This one is hosted on the arcgis.com site. Coverage is nation-wide, but this link zooms in specifically on Montana. (Thanks to Chad Bruns for spotting this one.)

Fire and Smoke Map (AirNow.gov)
https://fire.airnow.gov/?lat=48.3637&lng=-114.1893&zoom=7#

This very handy map showing fires, air quality and smoke plumes is part of the U.S. EPA’s “AirNow” air quality website. The link above is centered on Columbia Falls, MT.

Kalispell Interagency Dispatch Center:
https://gacc.nifc.gov/nrcc/dc/mtkic/index.htm

This multi-agency site is a central point for wildland fire information in the “Kalispell Dispatch Zone.” For a detailed log of recent incidents, click on the “WildWeb” link under “Dispatch/Logistics,” then select “Recent Incidents.”

Note: Sometimes, fires start in the Kootenai National Forest/Lincoln County that may spread east over the Whitefish Divide and threaten the North Fork. Visit the Kootenai Interagency Dispatch Center’s WildWeb page for more information on these blazes.

A list of WildWeb links for all dispatch centers can be found here.

Zoom Earth:
https://zoom.earth/

A useful mapping site for looking at wildfires and wind direction, not to mention radar imagery and storm tracking.

The Daily Inter Lake:
https://www.dailyinterlake.com/

This has been the best local newspaper for fire news over the past several years. Be sure to scan the entire article content. Although a story may appear to concentrate on a particular fire, it often includes information on other area fires as well. Warning: paywall.

The Hungry Horse News:
https://www.hungryhorsenews.com/

Although a weekly publication, the Hungry Horse News often has good online local fire coverage, updated daily.

The Flathead Beacon:
https://www.flatheadbeacon.com/

The Flathead Beacon covers fire news regularly. It’s best to read all wildfire articles as most will discuss more than one local fire.

Wildfire Today:
http://wildfiretoday.com/

Wildfire Today posts wildfire news, forecasts and information for locations across the United States.

Glacier National Park Web Cams:
https://www.nps.gov/glac/photosmultimedia/webcams.htm

These are live feeds from a number of web-connected video cameras located in Glacier National Park.

Northern Rockies Coordination Center:
https://gacc.nifc.gov/nrcc/index.htm

According to their main page write-up, the “Northern Rockies Coordination Center (NRCC) is the interagency focal point for coordinating the mobilization of resources for wildland fire and other all-hazard incidents throughout the Northern Rockies Area…” In other words, there are a ton of links to a great many fire-related resources, including incident reports, weather forecasts, active fires and deployment data.

The Predictive Services “Intelligence” page is a good starting point if you want to do some exploring: https://gacc.nifc.gov/nrcc/predictive/intelligence/intelligence.htm. The “NR Active Incident Summary Report” document is a good starting point.

National Park Service Fire News:
https://www.nps.gov/orgs/1965/news.htm

This is a series of links to reports on fires within the U.S. National Park System. For Glacier National Park specifically, there is sometimes additional information on their “Press Releases” page: http://www.nps.gov/glac/parknews/newsreleases.htm.

National Interagency Fire Center:
https://www.nifc.gov/

A good general starting point for nationwide fire information.

Storm Prediction Center Fire Weather Forecasts:
https://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/fire_wx/

This is the SPC’s main fire weather outlook page. It also includes links to a wealth of additional information on severe weather activity and fire-related forecast products.

Regional Fire Weather Forecasts:
https://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=CRH&product=FWF&issuedby=MSO

Here are the daily fire weather forecasts for this region. Scroll down to “Kootenai-Flathead/Glacier Park” for the section affecting the North Fork.

Hazard Mapping System Fire and Smoke Product:
https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/Products/land/hms.html

This page links to real-time satellite imagery and related analysis specializing on smoke and fire issues.

Missoula Regional Weather Satellite Imagery:
https://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/west/wfo/mso.html

A page of links to the GOES-West real-time weather satellite imagery for this region.

Canadian Wildfire Information

Canadian Wildland Fire Information System:
https://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/home

Canada-wide wildfire information.

Current Wildfire Situation – British Columbia:
https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/safety/wildfire-status

Links to maps and other information on wildfires in British Columbia.

Wildfire Status – Alberta:
https://wildfire.alberta.ca/wildfire-status/default.aspx

Wildfire status and related information for Alberta.