Started on Sep 12, 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
- 1 miles north of Iowa Park, TX
- People working on it
- 17 people
- Complexity
- Type 3 IncidentOfficial scale from 5 to 1: a Type 1 is the most complex in the country.
- What's burning
- Brush (2 feet)
- How it's behaving
- Extreme
- Jurisdiction
- SFS · Private 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 with extreme behavior through two-foot brush on private land, the active Highland Fire has charred 622 acres in Wichita County, Texas, located one mile north of Iowa Park. Satellites are picking up five heat detections over the past 48 hours around the 85-percent-contained perimeter, illustrating the current extent of the spread.
A Type 3 Incident management team consisting of 17 personnel, led by a Type 4 Incident Commander from the SFS, is actively suppressing the blaze that started on September 12, 2026. The incident unfolds during the region's typical fire season, which runs from June to October.
Broader wildfire activity across the country shows 3,213,890 hectares burned so far in 2026, marking a figure that is 41% below the two-decade average.
In context
This wildfire burned in Texas for 1 day. In total it burned about 622 acres — around 2.5 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 3,368,499 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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