Texas Wildfire, Smoke, and Air Quality Map

Fire season and landscape

The Panhandle and West Texas typically peak from January through April, when dormant grass and strong frontal winds align; the 2024 Smokehouse Creek Fire, the largest in state history, started in late February. A second, drought-dependent season can develop statewide in summer as heat cures fuels from the Hill Country to the Piney Woods.

Public land is comparatively scarce in Texas, but it includes Big Bend National Park in the Chihuahuan Desert, four national forests in the east (Sam Houston, Davy Crockett, Angelina, and Sabine), and the Caddo and LBJ National Grasslands north of Dallas. The most common large-fire type is wind-driven grass fire on the plains; drought determines how far fire risk extends into the timbered east.

• Panhandle grass fires can run tens of miles in an afternoon ahead of a front, so satellite hotspots usually update faster than official perimeters there.
• Red flag warnings in West Texas cluster around cold-front and dryline wind shifts, and the fire weather outlook layer flags those setups a day or two out.
• Summer fire activity in Central and East Texas depends on drought; the drought layer by June shows how the summer is setting up.