File:Fires in the western United States (MODIS 2016-08-25).jpg

English: A warm, generally dry winter across the western United States set the stage for a very active fire season in spring and summer 2016. Wildfires have popped up across the entire region, with exceptionally severe fires noted in California.

As of August 23, the National Interagency Fire Center reported that 38,901 fires across eight western states had consumed 4,233,630 acres in 2016 - a significant number, but not as high as the 7,487,737 acres burnt by this time in 2015. The fire season from January 1 – August 23, 2015 was the worst in the last 10 years (from 2006 to date) with the average acreage consumed during this period given as 5,424,024 acres.

As of August 23, seven active fires burned in California on over 207,000 acres. Fires included the devastating Blue Cut Fire, Cedar, Chimney, Clayton, Mokelumne, Rey, and Soberanes. The Blue Cut is reported as 96 percent contained while the Soberanes, which started earlier, is only 60 percent contained. Mokelumne is a newly reported fire.

Nevada, Oklahoma, Utah, and Colorado reported one fire each actively burning on August 23, Montana and Washington each reported two fires, Oregon reported four fires and Idaho reported five fires on that date. The most active state, Wyoming had eight fires on that date. The largest Wyoming fire, the Maple Fire, burned in the Yellowstone area and had consumed 22,448 acres. It was only 5 percent contained.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) flying aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this true-color image of the western United States on August 22. Each red hotspot marks an area where the thermal bands on the MODIS instrument detected an area where the temperatures were higher than background. When combined with smoke, such hotspots mark actively burning fires.