Minnesota fire map

How to read the Minnesota map

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

• Active fires (WFIGS). Minnesota 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 Minnesota 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 Minnesota-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 Minnesota data

As of 2026-08-27 12:55 UTC, WFIGS shows 14 active wildfires in Minnesota covering roughly 79,002 acres (320 km²). The largest is Bear Trap, at 30,804 acres (125 km²) and 67 % contained. NASA satellites logged 8 heat detections over Minnesota in the last 24 hours — thermal anomalies, not confirmed fires. By size, 0 are 100,000 acres or larger and 8 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 Minnesota in the last 48 hours.

Source: NIFC WFIGS — retrieved Aug 2026 · discovery time (WFIGS FireDiscoveryDateTime) · data as of 2026-08-27 12:55 UTC

Minnesota’s fire season, so far

Right now, 14 wildfires are active across Minnesota, 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 Minnesota’s current fires sit inside.

A verified Minnesota-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 Minnesota

• Bear Trap 30,804 acres (125 km²)
• Thumb 25,015 acres (101 km²)
• Wolfpack 6,871 acres (28 km²)
• Sioux 6,833 acres (28 km²)
• Little Knife 4,815 acres (19 km²)
• Camp 4,357 acres (18 km²)
• Dark 270 acres (1 km²)

Top 7 by acreage on the live WFIGS feed · Source: NIFC WFIGS — retrieved Aug 2026 · data as of 2026-08-27 12:55 UTC. All-time historical rankings await a verified historical source.

Who manages wildfire in Minnesota

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.

• Minnesota DNR — Forestry — state lead on wildfire on state and private lands.
• USDA Forest Service, Eastern Region — federal lead on the Superior & Chippewa national forests.
• 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 Minnesota 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 Minnesota. Pan to Northern Minnesota (the north woods and the Boundary Waters) or Southern Minnesota (the prairies and farmland of the south) — 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 Minnesota 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 Minnesota 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 Minnesota. Zoom to your region to see what is burning right now.

How many wildfires are burning in Minnesota right now?

As of 2026-08-27 12:55 UTC, WFIGS reports 14 active Minnesota 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 Minnesota?

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 Northern Minnesota fires?

Pan the map to Northern Minnesota — the north woods and the Boundary Waters. There is no separate Northern Minnesota map; the state map shows every active fire.

What are the largest wildfires in Minnesota?

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 Minnesota 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 Minnesota 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 12:55 UTC