Active wildfires in Colorado.
Official NIFC incident records for Colorado, refreshed hourly. 11 of 11 are not yet fully contained.
Fires burning in Colorado.
Each circle is one incident, sized by reported acreage and coloured by containment — deep red for uncontained through to grey for fully contained.
Largest active fires in Colorado.
Recorded September 9, 2026 from the NIFC incident feed. Containment is the share of a fire's perimeter with a control line around it — not how much of it has been put out.
| Fire | Size | Contained | Burning | Cause |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aspen Acres | 102,004 acres | 82% | 72 days | Human |
| Gold Mountain | 39,747 acres | 92% | 73 days | Undetermined |
| Willow | 7,534 acres | 80% | 72 days | Human |
| Elk | 7,257 acres | 73% | 61 days | Undetermined |
| Post | 4,335 acres | 90% | 28 days | Natural |
| Schwachheim | 1,582 acres | 89% | 149 days | Natural |
| SW3 | 85 acres | — | 6 days | Natural |
| Labor Day | 50 acres | — | 1 day | Natural |
| Swiss Roll | 4 acres | — | 20 days | Natural |
| Ghost | <1 acre | — | 3 days | Natural |
Showing the 10 largest of 11 active incidents in Colorado.
What a fire season does to Colorado water.
The reason a monitoring platform publishes a wildfire map at all.
Severe fire strips vegetation and can leave soil water-repellent, so rain a healthy watershed would have absorbed runs straight off the burn scar instead. That drives debris flows, channel scour, and pulses of ash and sediment into streams well downstream of anything that burned — raising turbidity, depressing dissolved oxygen, and, with the riparian canopy gone, raising water temperature across reaches cold-water species depend on. The elevated risk usually persists for several years, until vegetation re-establishes.
This is a situational-awareness map built from federal data. Perimeters lag the real fire edge, and smoke output is a forecast. For evacuation orders and life-safety information in Colorado, follow your local emergency management agency, county sheriff, and official incident channels.
See Colorado on the live map.
This page is a still frame. The national map is interactive — pan, zoom, filter, and read every record behind what you see here.
Official NIFC fire perimeters and incident points under NOAA’s HRRR-Smoke near-surface forecast, filterable by size, state, and containment.
More on Colorado.
Every Driftwise public map covers Colorado. No login, no paywall.
Watershed Explorer
Click any point in the country and read what six federal datasets say about it — flow, drought, fire, flood forecast, satellite cyanobacteria screening and Clean Water Act impairment — each one labelled with what it is actually a fact about.
Streamflow Map — Colorado
Every reporting USGS stream gauge in the country, coloured by how today’s flow ranks against that gauge’s own record for this calendar day.
U.S. Drought Map — Colorado
The U.S. Drought Monitor — the country’s official weekly drought assessment — drawn across five severity categories from D0 to D4.
Flood Outlook Map — Colorado
NOAA’s river forecast centres call the next few days at every forecast gauge in the country, on the National Weather Service’s own flood categories — action, minor, moderate and major.
Impaired Waters Map — Colorado
Every subwatershed in the country against the states’ own Clean Water Act assessments — what is impaired, what is still on the 303(d) list, what is causing it, and how much of the country nobody has assessed at all.
Cyanobacteria Bloom Map — Colorado
NASA and EPA’s satellites read a pigment index over roughly 2,300 U.S. lakes large enough to resolve at 300 m. A pre-screening indicator, not a health assessment, and never a substitute for your state’s advisory.
Critical Habitat & Protected Waters Map — Colorado
Every river and stream the federal government has designated as ESA critical habitat, the listed species each unit is designated for, and who manages the protected land around it.
Wildfires by state.
Every state, with what the current NIFC feed reports. 25 states have at least one active incident right now.
- Alabama2 fires
- Alaska5 fires
- Arizona5 fires
- Arkansas7 fires
- California42 fires
- Colorado11 fires
- Connecticutnone active
- Delawarenone active
- District of Columbianone active
- Florida12 fires
- Georgia2 fires
- Hawaiinone active
- Idaho21 fires
- Illinoisnone active
- Indiananone active
- Iowanone active
- Kansasnone active
- Kentuckynone active
- Louisiananone active
- Maine1 fire
- Marylandnone active
- Massachusetts1 fire
- Michigannone active
- Minnesota6 fires
- Mississippi3 fires
- Missourinone active
- Montana28 fires
- Nebraskanone active
- Nevada8 fires
- New Hampshirenone active
- New Jerseynone active
- New Mexico74 fires
- New Yorknone active
- North Carolinanone active
- North Dakota9 fires
- Ohionone active
- Oklahoma35 fires
- Oregon73 fires
- Pennsylvanianone active
- Puerto Riconone active
- Rhode Islandnone active
- South Carolinanone active
- South Dakota15 fires
- Tennesseenone active
- Texas3 fires
- Utah14 fires
- Vermontnone active
- Virginianone active
- Washington58 fires
- West Virginianone active
- Wisconsin12 fires
- Wyoming4 fires
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