Active wildfires in Montana.
Official NIFC incident records for Montana, refreshed hourly. 36 of 39 are not yet fully contained.
Fires burning in Montana.
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 Montana.
Recorded September 4, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sand Creek | 35,433 acres | 21% | 33 days | Undetermined |
| Bobcat Lakes | 10,850 acres | 61% | 34 days | Undetermined |
| Camp Creek | 9,637 acres | 0% | 13 days | Natural |
| Silvertip | 7,280 acres | 15% | 41 days | Natural |
| Moose | 6,003 acres | 15% | 39 days | Undetermined |
| Windmill | 4,253 acres | 100% | 15 days | Undetermined |
| Snow | 3,500 acres | 0% | 1 day | Undetermined |
| Skillet | 3,414 acres | 82% | 36 days | Natural |
| Black Bear | 2,126 acres | 22% | 33 days | Natural |
| Nature Grove | 1,422 acres | 0% | 11 days | Natural |
Showing the 10 largest of 39 active incidents in Montana.
What a fire season does to Montana 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 Montana, follow your local emergency management agency, county sheriff, and official incident channels.
See Montana 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 Montana.
Every Driftwise public map covers Montana. 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 — Montana
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 — Montana
The U.S. Drought Monitor — the country’s official weekly drought assessment — drawn across five severity categories from D0 to D4.
Flood Outlook Map — Montana
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 — Montana
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 — Montana
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 — Montana
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. 30 states have at least one active incident right now.
- Alabama1 fire
- Alaska4 fires
- Arizona12 fires
- Arkansas4 fires
- California81 fires
- Colorado10 fires
- Connecticutnone active
- Delawarenone active
- District of Columbianone active
- Florida15 fires
- Georgia2 fires
- Hawaii1 fire
- Idaho27 fires
- Illinoisnone active
- Indiananone active
- Iowanone active
- Kansasnone active
- Kentuckynone active
- Louisiananone active
- Maine2 fires
- Maryland1 fire
- Massachusetts1 fire
- Michigan9 fires
- Minnesota8 fires
- Mississippi6 fires
- Missourinone active
- Montana39 fires
- Nebraskanone active
- Nevada11 fires
- New Hampshirenone active
- New Jersey1 fire
- New Mexico28 fires
- New Yorknone active
- North Carolina1 fire
- North Dakota4 fires
- Ohionone active
- Oklahoma28 fires
- Oregon77 fires
- Pennsylvanianone active
- Puerto Riconone active
- Rhode Islandnone active
- South Carolinanone active
- South Dakota5 fires
- Tennesseenone active
- Texas4 fires
- Utah9 fires
- Vermontnone active
- Virginianone active
- Washington38 fires
- West Virginianone active
- Wisconsin34 fires
- Wyoming10 fires
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