West Virginia Wildfire, Smoke, and Air Quality Map

Fire season and landscape

West Virginia's statutory forest fire seasons run March through May and October through December, matching the leaf-off windows when hardwood litter cures and carries fire. Fall drought years are the more active of the two. Between fire seasons, flash flooding in the state's narrow hollows is the hazard that recurs most often.

The Monongahela National Forest holds the high Alleghenies, including spruce country above 4,000 feet, while most of the rest of the state is steep hardwood hill country cut by narrow valleys. Slope drives fire behavior here more than fuel type, with leaf-off fires running uphill fast. The Cheat, Greenbrier, Elk, and Kanawha rivers drain terrain that floods hard in heavy rain.

• West Virginia's fires are small by western standards but move fast on steep ground; the 24-hour hotspot layer often registers them before a perimeter is mapped.
• Fall fire season here tracks leaf drop and drought together; the drought layer over the Alleghenies signals the years the season turns active.
• Flash flooding in narrow hollows is the state's most recurrent hazard; the river gauge layer covers the Cheat, Elk, Greenbrier, and Kanawha.