Started on Jun 26, 2026.
United States todayLive
True view
Fire view
Fire view (right): infrared (SWIR), sees through smoke and brings out the heat.
🟢 green = vegetation
🟤 brown = already burned
🟠 orange = fire right now
Drag to compare: normal photo on the left, heat brought out on the right.
Green: vegetationBrown: already burnedOrange: fire right nowSentinel-2 · Copernicus
Red dots: heat detected by satellite in the last 48h. NASA FIRMS
Quick facts
- Location
- 25 miles southwest of Monticello, UT
- Cause
- Natural
- People working on it
- 62 people
- Complexity
- Type 4 IncidentOfficial scale from 5 to 1: a Type 1 is the most complex in the country.
- What's burning
- Timber (Litter and Understory)
- How it's behaving
- MinimalCreeping — Moves slowly, hugging the ground.Smoldering — Burning without flame, in the ground or in roots. Can flare up days later.
- Jurisdiction
- USFS · Federal land
Glossary: what each term means
Barely moving. Low, thin smoke.
Burning without flame, in the ground or in roots. Can flare up days later.
Moves slowly, hugging the ground.
Spreads with low, steady flames.
Spreading evenly and steadily, with visible flame.
Fast and unpredictable.
Runs along the ground much faster than a person walks.
Grows along the sides, not head-on.
Moves against the wind or downhill, which makes it slower.
Climbs into the treetops and jumps crown to crown. It can't be attacked from the ground.
Climbs into the crowns in bursts and drops back down.
Whole trees flaring up like torches.
Single scattered trees flaring up whole, like torches.
Whole clumps of trees flaring at once.
Wind carries embers through the air and starts new fires ahead of the front: that is how a fire jumps a road or a firebreak.
The wind pushes it in long runs in one direction.
The ones marked ● are the behaviors that make a fire harder to stop. They are not a warning or an instruction: they are the description written by the agency in charge. For decisions, always follow your emergency services.
Burning across 107,189 acres of federal timber land in San Juan County, Utah, the Babylon Fire has reached full containment after a grueling 48-day run that saw an average daily growth of approximately 2,233 acres per day. Located 25 miles southwest of Monticello and near Blanding, the blaze was managed by a Type 3 Incident Command structure under the USFS, mobilizing 62 personnel to battle the flames through timber litter and understory.
Fire behavior has moderated to minimal, creeping, and smoldering conditions as suppression efforts successfully brought the incident to a close. Despite its massive footprint and a total cost of $62,825,000, the Babylon Fire unfolded during a broader national landscape where 2,866,952 hectares have burned so far in 2026, marking a figure 48% below the two-decade average for a typical fire season spanning from June to October.
In context
This wildfire burned in Utah for 66 days. In total it burned about 107,189 acres — around 434 km².
In the Northern Hemisphere, wildfire activity usually peaks during the warm, dry months — roughly May through October.
The bigger picture in United States
Across United States, roughly 3,362,441 hectares have burned so far in 2026 — 39% below the two-decade average. Data from Copernicus GWIS.
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Community reports
Reports from people near the fire · unverified
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Not official emergency information. In an emergency, contact fire services/authorities.
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