Colorado fire map

How to read the Colorado map

The map layers government feeds scoped to Colorado, and each is labeled for exactly what it is — no feed is dressed up as more than it measures.

• Active fires (WFIGS). Colorado incident points from the National Interagency Fire Center — the interagency system of record — plus mapped perimeters for the subset of fires that publish one. A fire with no published perimeter shows as a point, never a guessed shape.
• Satellite heat detections (FIRMS). NASA flags thermal anomalies within about a minute of a satellite pass; the Colorado layer is filtered from the national pull. A detection is a hot spot — not a confirmed fire, and not a photograph. A “live satellite fire map” here means heat detections, never imagery.
• Smoke — the grey plumes (HMS). The soft grey areas are NOAA’s Hazard Mapping System smoke analysis: analysts trace smoke plumes once a day from satellite imagery — overhead column smoke, dated, not a ground-level reading. Hover or tap a plume for its analysis date. Smoke drifts across state lines, so this layer isn’t Colorado-only; see the dedicated smoke map, or check ground-level AQI on the air quality map.
• Air quality (AirNow). Ground-monitor AQI lives on the air quality map, shown with its agency credit.

Reading today’s Colorado data

As of 2026-08-27 08:39 UTC, WFIGS shows 14 active wildfires in Colorado covering roughly 227,767 acres (922 km²). The largest is Aspen Acres, at 102,004 acres (413 km²) and 82 % contained. NASA satellites logged 4 heat detections over Colorado in the last 24 hours — thermal anomalies, not confirmed fires. By size, 1 is 100,000 acres or larger and 7 are under 1,000. Each figure is stamped with the agency time it was last updated.

New fires — last 48 hours

No new large fires reported in Colorado in the last 48 hours.

Source: NIFC WFIGS — retrieved Aug 2026 · discovery time (WFIGS FireDiscoveryDateTime) · data as of 2026-08-27 08:39 UTC

Colorado’s fire season, so far

Right now, 14 wildfires are active across Colorado, and the largest handful dominate the acreage: the top 8 cover about 100% of the active total (a computed share). These are the fires currently on the feed, not a year-to-date total — a fire can sit at the top of the table even at 100% contained, because it stays on the active feed until it ages out and is never marked “extinguished.”

For running season-to-date acreage and incident counts, see wildfire season 2026, built from the same WFIGS system and updated as the year progresses.

For the national historical picture — how many US wildland fires burn and how many acres they take every year since 1983, from the official NIFC record — see US wildfire statistics. It’s the long-run context Colorado’s current fires sit inside.

A verified Colorado-specific all-time ranking (the state’s largest fires in history) needs a state-level historical dataset we’re still verifying — so this page doesn’t publish one rather than show history we can’t yet stand behind. The table above ranks the largest fires active today.

Largest fires of 2026 in Colorado

• Aspen Acres 102,004 acres (413 km²)
• Ferris 64,881 acres (263 km²)
• Gold Mountain 39,721 acres (161 km²)
• Willow 7,534 acres (30 km²)
• Elk 7,257 acres (29 km²)
• Post 4,343 acres (18 km²)
• Rio Blanco 1,388 acres (6 km²)
• 310 603 acres (2 km²)

Top 8 by acreage on the live WFIGS feed · Source: NIFC WFIGS — retrieved Aug 2026 · data as of 2026-08-27 08:39 UTC. All-time historical rankings await a verified historical source.

Who manages wildfire in Colorado

Responsibility is split between state and federal agencies; this map reads the interagency record they publish. For a specific incident’s official status, evacuation orders, or emergency information, go to the responsible agency — this map is situational awareness, not an emergency service.

• Colorado Division of Fire Prevention & Control — state lead for wildfire coordination in Colorado.
• USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Region — federal lead on national forest lands in Colorado.
• National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) — interagency coordination; publisher of the WFIGS system of record this map reads.

What you can do with it

• See where fires are in Colorado today. The map and the largest-active-fires table answer it at a glance — statewide, or zoomed to your region.
• Check a specific part of Colorado. Pan to Western Colorado (the Western Slope and the western mountains) or the Front Range (the corridor from Fort Collins through Denver to Pueblo) — the whole state is on one map; there is no separate page to hunt for.
• Find fires near you. Allow location and the map recenters on you; the near-me view is served by your browser, so city-level checks don’t need their own page.
• See if your area is smoky. Cross to the smoke map and the air quality map, or step back to the national wildfire map.

No app to install — it works in any browser, on any device.

Frequently asked questions

What are the grey areas on the Colorado map?

They are wildfire-smoke plumes from NOAA’s Hazard Mapping System (HMS) — a dated, once-daily satellite analysis of where smoke is in the atmosphere. It is smoke aloft, not necessarily at ground level, so a grey area can sit overhead while the air you breathe is clear. Hover or tap a plume for its analysis date. For smoke alone see the smoke map; for ground-level AQI see the air quality map.

Where are the fires in Colorado today?

The live map and the largest-active-fires table at the top of this page show every large wildfire currently on the national feed for Colorado. Zoom to your region to see what is burning right now.

How many wildfires are burning in Colorado right now?

As of 2026-08-27 08:39 UTC, WFIGS reports 14 active Colorado wildfires. That is a count of fires currently on the active feed, not a year-to-date total.

Is there a fire near me in Colorado?

Allow location access and the map recenters on you; the near-me view is served by your browser’s location, so there is no separate page to find. City- and county-level queries are answered by panning and zooming this one map.

Where are the Western Colorado fires?

Pan the map to Western Colorado — the Western Slope and the western mountains. There is no separate Western Colorado map; the state map shows every active fire.

What are the largest wildfires in Colorado?

The table above ranks the largest fires active today, by reported acreage. An all-time historical ranking needs a verified historical dataset, which we have not finished verifying — so we do not publish one here rather than show unsourced history.

Is this a live Colorado wildfire tracker?

Yes — it reads WFIGS incidents, NASA FIRMS heat detections, and NOAA HMS smoke, each stamped with its own agency time, and runs in any browser with nothing to install.

Where the Colorado data comes from

Every number on this page traces to a primary government feed — WFIGS (NIFC) for incidents, FIRMS (NASA) for heat detections, and HMS (NOAA) for smoke — with the exact source and “data as of” time shown beside it. Missing data is shown as missing, never zero or inferred; totals such as active-fire acreage are labeled as computed sums, not year-to-date figures. Perimeters are published for only a subset of fires; where none exists, the fire shows as a point.

The full source list, licenses, and a live feed-health strip are on the data sources & methodology page.

Source: NIFC WFIGS — retrieved Aug 2026 · Source: NASA FIRMS — retrieved Aug 2026 · data as of 2026-08-27 08:39 UTC