Arkansas Wildfire, Smoke, and Air Quality Map

Fire season and landscape

The state runs two fire windows: late winter into early spring before green-up, and fall when drought carries into the leaf drop. Prescribed burning in shortleaf and loblolly pine country is routine through the cooler months, so a share of the satellite hotspots on this map are planned burns. Fall drought years produce the larger wildfire runs in the Ouachitas and Ozarks.

The Ouachita National Forest and the Ozark-St. Francis National Forests anchor the state's wild country, pine and oak mountains cut by the Arkansas River Valley between them. The Buffalo National River drains some of the steepest Ozark terrain, while the eastern third of the state is Delta farmland where field burning is common. Fire here favors ridgetop pine and cured hardwood litter; water moves through big river basins that flood in wet winters.

• Cool-season hotspot clusters in the Ouachitas and Ozarks are often prescribed burns on national forest land; the 7-day hotspot layer shows how a burn program has moved across a district.
• Fall drought is the usual precursor to Arkansas's larger wildfires; the drought layer trending into severe over the highlands is the early signal.
• The White, Arkansas, and Ouachita basins flood in wet winters and springs; the river gauge layer covers stages across all three.