Nebraska Wildfire, Smoke, and Air Quality Map
Nebraska's fire country is the Sandhills and the Pine Ridge, where open grassland and scattered ponderosa meet some of the windiest weather on the Plains. This page tracks the live layers most relevant to conditions across the state.
Current conditions snapshot
- Wildfires
- No active mapped fires attributed to Nebraska in the national feed right now.
- Red flag warnings
- No Red Flag Warnings in or near the Nebraska map area.
- Smoke
- Heavy smoke over parts of the Nebraska map area in the latest NOAA analysis (2026-08-09).
- Fire weather
- An SPC elevated fire weather outlook touches the Nebraska map area today.
- Drought
- Parts of the Nebraska map area are exceptional drought (D4) on this week's U.S. Drought Monitor.
- Air quality
- Worst AirNow forecast for a Nebraska reporting area: Omaha, AQI 60 (Moderate).
- River gauges
- No gauges reporting flood conditions in the Nebraska map area.
Data as of Aug 10, 3:20 PM MDT. Sources: NIFC, NWS, NOAA, EPA AirNow, U.S. Drought Monitor. Map areas are rectangular and overlap neighboring states; open the live map for exact locations.
Fire season and landscape
Grass fires concentrate in late winter and spring before green-up, with a second, drought-dependent stretch in late summer when the Sandhills cure out. The Pine Ridge in the northwest carries the state's timber fire risk, and its worst seasons, like 2012, have tracked severe drought.
Public land includes the Nebraska National Forest's hand-planted pines at Halsey, the Samuel R. McKelvie National Forest in the Sandhills, and the Oglala National Grassland near the Pine Ridge escarpment. The characteristic hazards are fast grass fire in open rangeland and spring flooding on the Platte, Niobrara, and Missouri systems, as the March 2019 floods demonstrated.
- Sandhills grass fires burn through open country with few barriers, so 24-hour satellite hotspots typically outpace mapped perimeters.
- The March 2019 floods make the river gauge layer a year-round companion to the fire layers here, especially during rapid snowmelt.
- Drought status in the Panhandle and Sandhills is the strongest predictor of whether late summer brings a real fire season.
Official Nebraska sources
Layer guides for Nebraska conditions
Informational only. Not an emergency alert service. Data comes from government sources that can lag, drop, or be wrong at any time. In an emergency call 911 and follow your local authorities. Field Risk Systems is not affiliated with any government agency. See the terms of use and privacy notice.
Nearby states
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