Cottonwood Fire (Utah)

Burning across 97,464 acres of federal timber, litter, and understory five miles east of Beaver, Utah, in Beaver County, the Cottonwood Fire has maintained a steady trajectory over seventy days of activity, averaging an estimated 1,392 acres per day since it started on June 22, 2026. Managing this Type 4 incident within the region's typical June to October fire season, thirty-three personnel under a Type 4 IC have successfully brought the USFS-managed fire to 100 percent containment, with current fire behavior now characterized as minimal, smoldering, and showing only isolated torching.

The broader national landscape highlights a contrasting picture for the year, with 3,150,304 hectares burned so far in 2026, marking a total that sits 43 percent below the country's two-decade average. Despite this broader downward trend in national acreage, suppression efforts on the Cottonwood incident accumulated a total cost of $62,771,500 before crews achieved full containment.