According to the National Interagency Fire Center, over 8 million acres have been burned by wildfires through the end of August and unless some freak natural phenomenon occurs (El Niño?!?!?), this year will go down in United States’ history as the worst ever for wildfires.
Currently, 59 large wildfires are burning across the country, with the main focus being in California, Montana, Idaho, and the Pacific Northwest.
Here are the numbers of large wildfires per state
Alaska (1)
California (6)
Idaho (16)
Montana (14)
Oregon (7)
Texas (1)
Washington (14)
In Washington state, three fires have scorched more than 100,000 acres of terrain and the National Interagency Fire Center remains at “Preparedness Level 5,” which is the highest score on the 1-5 scale.
The total amount of burned terrain in Washington state is a whopping 909,474 acres.
However…
5 million acres have already been burned up by wildfires in Alaska earlier this year!
The current record holder for worst wildfire year in the United States is 2006, which witnessed a staggering 9,873,745 acres affected by wildfires. That said, by September 1 of 2006, only 7,663,928 acres had burned and currently the United States is reporting 8,202,557 acres burned. So unless El Nino packs a serious punch starting now, we may just be in the middle of the worst fire year to ever.