Louisiana Wildfire, Smoke, and Air Quality Map

Fire season and landscape

Louisiana's dormant-season fires run from late winter into spring, with a second window in fall when drought dries the flatwoods and marsh. Prescribed burning on the Kisatchie National Forest and industrial timberland is constant through the cooler months. From June through November, hurricane season and the flooding that follows are as much a part of the hazard picture as fire.

The Kisatchie National Forest, Louisiana's only national forest, spreads across the central piney hills in several units and burns regularly by prescription. South of the uplands the state flattens into the Atchafalaya Basin and a broad coastal marsh, where dried marsh grass can carry fire in drought. The Mississippi and Red rivers frame a hazard profile in which high water is as routine as fire.

• Marsh fires in south Louisiana can put dense smoke across long distances at ground level; the smoke and air quality layers track where a plume is riding.
• Winter hotspot detections across the Kisatchie National Forest and industrial pine country are usually prescription burns; the 24-hour hotspot layer separates fresh activity from lingering heat.
• The Mississippi, Red, and Atchafalaya systems move enormous volumes of water; the river gauge layer follows stage against flood levels through the basins.