Active wildfires in South Dakota.
Official NIFC incident records for South Dakota, refreshed hourly. 11 of 12 are not yet fully contained.
Fires burning in South Dakota.
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 South Dakota.
Recorded September 13, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Needles | 6,018 acres | 90% | 8 days | Natural |
| Rancher | 504 acres | 100% | 32 days | Natural |
| Lookout | 444 acres | 71% | 5 days | Human |
| Event | 230 acres | — | 8 days | Natural |
| Dry Grass | 97 acres | — | 36 days | Human |
| Scouts Spot | <1 acre | — | 1 day | Undetermined |
| Campy | <1 acre | — | 2 days | Human |
| Late Fair | <1 acre | — | 3 days | Undetermined |
| Lake | Size not reported | — | 150 days | — |
| Green G1 | Size not reported | — | 60 days | — |
Showing the 10 largest of 12 active incidents in South Dakota.
What a fire season does to South Dakota 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 South Dakota, follow your local emergency management agency, county sheriff, and official incident channels.
See South Dakota 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 South Dakota.
Every Driftwise public map covers South Dakota. No login, no paywall.
Watershed Explorer
Click any point in the country — or search a subbasin, gauge or lake by name — and read what nine federal datasets say about it: flow, drought, fire, smoke, flood forecast, satellite cyanobacteria screening, land cover, critical habitat and Clean Water Act impairment, each one labelled with what it is actually a fact about.
Streamflow Map — South Dakota
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 — South Dakota
The U.S. Drought Monitor — the country’s official weekly drought assessment — drawn across five severity categories from D0 to D4.
Flood Outlook Map — South Dakota
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 — South Dakota
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 — South Dakota
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 — South Dakota
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. 27 states have at least one active incident right now.
- Alabama4 fires
- Alaska6 fires
- Arizona7 fires
- Arkansas16 fires
- California52 fires
- Colorado11 fires
- Connecticutnone active
- Delawarenone active
- District of Columbianone active
- Florida7 fires
- Georgia2 fires
- Hawaiinone active
- Idaho20 fires
- Illinoisnone active
- Indiananone active
- Iowanone active
- Kansasnone active
- Kentuckynone active
- Louisiana3 fires
- Mainenone active
- Marylandnone active
- Massachusetts1 fire
- Michigan1 fire
- Minnesota6 fires
- Mississippi3 fires
- Missourinone active
- Montana70 fires
- Nebraskanone active
- Nevada6 fires
- New Hampshirenone active
- New Jerseynone active
- New Mexico68 fires
- New Yorknone active
- North Carolinanone active
- North Dakota2 fires
- Ohionone active
- Oklahoma33 fires
- Oregon62 fires
- Pennsylvanianone active
- Puerto Rico1 fire
- Rhode Islandnone active
- South Carolinanone active
- South Dakota12 fires
- Tennesseenone active
- Texas8 fires
- Utah12 fires
- Vermontnone active
- Virginianone active
- Washington36 fires
- West Virginianone active
- Wisconsin8 fires
- Wyoming7 fires
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