Latest Wildfire Headlines
All the headlines from our Wildfire Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Bloomberg View: California’s Wildfires Didn’t Have to Be So Extreme
Sep 21 2015 // Warming temperatures and a historic drought made Northern California’s Valley fire faster to spread and harder to fight. But the bigger culprit, sadly but thankfully, was something under human control: forest...
California Wildfires Destruction Total Now Tops 1,000 Homes
Sep 21 2015 // It has been several days since two huge wildfires in Northern California peaked in their ferocity, yet the damage they did is still being revealed daily. The tally of homes destroyed topped 1,000 on Saturday after...
Montana’s Wildfire Season Second-biggest So Far This decade
Sep 17 2015 // Montana’s fire season began quietly but has quickly grown to the second-largest so far this decade after lightning storms last month ignited a rash of blazes that spread rapidly amid bone-dry conditions. This season...
Massive California Blazes, And It’s Not Even Official Wildfire Season Yet
Sep 16 2015 // A pair of massive blazes in the Northern California are a bleak reminder of how bad things can get in a state with persistent drought and windy conditions. A more worrisome thought is California’s official wildfire...
Forrest Service Maps Shows Expansion of WUI in West as Wildfires Burn
Sep 16 2015 // A new U.S. Forest Service report shows the continued expansion of housing development near forests, an area referred to as the wildland-urban interface, with direct implications for the cost of wildfire...
Wildfire in California Damages Five Big Power Plants
Sep 15 2015 // A California wildfire damaged five power plants at Calpine Corp.’s Geysers geothermal complex in Lake and Sonoma Counties. The so-called Valley Fire burned local power distribution lines, cooling towers and...
FEMA Provides Federal Funds to Help Fight Oregon Wildfire
Sep 15 2015 // The Federal Emergency Management Agency has authorized the use of federal funds to help with firefighting costs for the Dry Gulch Fire in Baker County, Ore. FEMA Regional Administrator Kenneth D. Murphy determined that the...
Massive Northern California Wildfire Destroys 400 Homes and Businesses
Sep 14 2015 // Two fast-burning wildfires overtook several Northern California towns, killing at least one person and destroying hundreds of homes and businesses and sending thousands of residents fleeing highways lined with buildings,...
California Struggles with Wildfires, Thunderstorms, Triple-Digit Heat
Sep 9 2015 // Wildfires burned amid a week of triple-digit temperatures across California, while some sections of the state saw sudden thunderstorms and flash floods. High temperatures were expected from Sacramento to San Bernardino,...
Fighting Western U.S. Wildfires Costing More than $1B, Agriculture Chief Says
Sep 1 2015 // U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the federal government has spent more than $1 billion fighting this year’s deadly wildfires, which have scorched drought-stricken Western states. Vilsack told a news...
Wildfire Threatens Idaho Town, Evacuations Ordered
Aug 28 2015 // Residents in west-central Idaho near the town of Riggins were told to flee due to a wildfire that expanded to 40 square miles Thursday, an 11-square-mile jump. Fire managers say the fire made runs through the tops of trees...
$198M in Property at High Risk from Chelan Wildfire in Washington
Aug 26 2015 // The massive Chelan wildfire in Washington poses a significant risk to roughly 634 homes with a total reconstruction cost of more than $198 million, an analysis of the ongoing fire issued Wednesday shows. The analysis by...
Fire Burning Near California Ski Resort Threatens Homes
Aug 25 2015 // Hundreds of mountain homes remained threatened on Monday as crews increased containment of a wildfire burning through timber near a popular Southern California ski resort. Water cannons usually used for making snow were...
Smoke Lifts over Washington fires, but Potential for Fire Growth Remains
Aug 24 2015 // The massive cloud of smoke began to lift over Washington wildfires over the weekend, but as air quality improves the fire’s behavior could become more erratic and intense, fire officials said. “It’s like...
Researchers Find Link Between Atlantic Hurricanes and Amazon Wildfires
Aug 24 2015 // Researchers have uncovered a “remarkably strong link” between high wildfire risk in the Amazon basin and the hurricanes that ravage North Atlantic shorelines. The wildfire-hurricane association is a result of...
At Least 36 Homes Destroyed by Oregon Wildfire
Aug 20 2015 // The Grant County Sheriff’s Office says at least 36 homes have been destroyed by an Eastern Oregon wildfire, 10 more than previously reported. Gov. Kate Brown met Wednesday with victims of the fire near John Day and...
Southern California Fires Burn Structures, Stop Oil Field Operations
Aug 18 2015 // Crews working through the night stopped the spread of two Los Angeles County fires in Southern California that burned several structures, charred hundreds of acres of dry brush and led to the arson arrest of one person. A...
Washington Wildfires Remain Threat in Hot, Dry Weather
Aug 18 2015 // Crews continued their battle late Monday with several large fires threatening home in the Chelan area in central Washington. The blazes have destroyed more than 50 structures, forced about 1,500 residents to flee and...
Second Largest Wildfire Year in History for Alaska
Aug 12 2015 // This summer’s fire season has officially become the second biggest on record in Alaska. More than 5,081,000 acres, or 7,940 square miles, have burned this year. That surpasses the nearly 5.05 million acres burned in...
Arizona Wildfire That Forced Evacuations Now Partial Contained
Aug 11 2015 // A wildfire in Arizona that has grown to more than 6,000 acres and forces hundreds to evacuate is now 40 percent contained, fire officials say. The Willow fire in Mohave Valley is being battled by more than 300 firefighting...
