The United States’ wildfire season is off to a historic start this year, with levels of activity not seen in nearly two decades. Since the beginning of the year, around 30,000 fires have been recorded across the country — the highest number in approximately 20 years.
More than eight thousand square kilometers were burned, double the average of the last ten years and the highest rate of destruction in 14 years. Experts warn that the situation is likely to worsen in the coming months.
The Southeast region of the USA concentrated the largest number of occurrences, with more than usual. The largest flames, however, advanced across the Great Plains, driven by strong winds.
In the West, unusually early and destructive events are already warning of a dangerous season.
“It’s May and we’re already talking about people losing their homes and their lives,” said Morgan Varner, director of research at Tall Timbers Research Station & Land Conservancy in Tallahassee, Florida.
He points out that several factors “point to a really bad year” in many regions, including low snowpack, abundant vegetation, drought and the climate changes expected with the development of a “Super” El Niño, all against a backdrop of climate warming that intensifies the hot and dry conditions that favor the emergence and spread of fires.
Drought generates fires in the Southeast
Fires in Georgia are common between March and May, but 2025 is one for the history books.
Since the beginning of the year, more than 3,000 fires have burned nearly 135 square miles in the state, according to data from the Georgia Forestry Commission — nearly double the number and eight times as many acres burned compared to the five-year average over the same period.
“We are in drought, and it has been intensifying since late summer 2025,” said Thomas Barrett, chief of forest protection for the Georgia Forestry Commission.
“It took this long to finally reach a point that was as critical as it could be,” he added.
The Highway 82 fire in April is believed to have been caused by a party balloon that fell onto a power line. The fire destroyed more than 120 homes — the largest number of homes destroyed by a single fire since records began in the 1950s, and likely the largest in state history, according to Barrett.
Some fires sent smoke hundreds of miles away, reaching as far as Atlanta.
In Florida, fires have burned tens of thousands of acres near Jacksonville and nearby metro Miami.
“We’re in an area where wildfires are almost never seen,” Varner said.
“We’re coughing from the smoke as we mow the grass,” he said.
The situation also compromises the carrying out of controlled burns — a practice that reduces accumulated vegetation to prevent it from serving as fuel in future fires.
the number of controlled fires carried out is among the lowest in the last 25 years. In the Southeast as a whole, “almost every state is at about half of what they should have done,” Varner said, warning of a ripple effect that could affect next year.
Winds fuel flames
In less than a day, on March 12, the Morrill Fire advanced across 70 miles of western Nebraska prairie. The fire passed through the city of Oshkosh, where the fire department advised residents to turn on sprinklers until reinforcements arrived. With the winds making control difficult, the fire consumed approximately 2,600 square kilometers, becoming the largest in the state’s history and the largest in the country in 2025.
The Great Plains — especially Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas and South Dakota — account for much of the land burned this spring.
Nebraska alone, which has recorded 25 fires so far, accounted for about 40% of the total area burned in the U.S. as of May 21, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.
The region has faced intense drought for months, with strong winds and low humidity helping the flames spread across parched pastures.
Studies indicate that the total area burned in the Great Plains has grown by 400% since the 1990s, accompanied by an increasing number of fires per year.
Most intense season predicted in the West
In the western US, fire season typically only intensifies in the summer and fall, but firefighters are already on the move.
Off the coast of Southern California, a fire has consumed more than 60 square kilometers on Santa Rosa Island, home to rare plants and animals found nowhere else in the world.
Fires in Riverside and Ventura counties also prompted evacuation warnings for tens of thousands of people.
“We’ve had an unusually dry winter for most of the western U.S., and that’s what’s worrying people,” said Craig Clements, professor of meteorology and director of the National Science Foundation’s Center for Interdisciplinary Wildfire Research.
March’s historic heat melted snowpack below normal levels in Southern California, drying out vegetation early.
Forecasts call for above-average summer fire activity in California, the Southwest and the Great Basin. A developing El Niño could bring more dry storms to the region — and more lightning to start new fires.
“What worries me is if we have a prolonged heat wave followed by lightning without rain,” Clements said. “Everyone is anticipating it, but it depends on how the weather behaves.”
With records being broken in several regions, experts warn that the combination of drought, accumulated vegetation, strong winds and climate change puts the US facing one of the most worrying fire seasons in recent years.
