Started on Mar 13, 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
- 15 miles northeast of Bridgeport, NE
- Cause
- Human
- People working on it
- 195 people
- Complexity
- Type 1 IncidentOfficial scale from 5 to 1: a Type 1 is the most complex in the country.
- What's burning
- Timber (Grass and Understory)
- How it's behaving
- MinimalSmoldering — Burning without flame, in the ground or in roots. Can flare up days later.Backing — Moves against the wind or downhill, which makes it slower.
- Jurisdiction
- 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.
Spanning 642,029 acres across Garden County, the human-caused Morrill Fire near Bridgeport, Nebraska, has been burning for 132 days with an average daily growth of roughly 4,864 acres per day. Fire behavior is currently minimal, smoldering, and backing across private timber consisting of grass and understory.
A Type 1 Incident management team of 195 personnel has successfully brought the blaze to 100 percent containment, accumulating a total suppression cost of $8,621,175 since the fire started on March 13, 2026.
In context
This wildfire burned in Nebraska for 144 days. In total it burned about 642,029 acres — around 2,598 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 3,415,301 hectares have burned so far in 2026 — 38% 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.