Started on Aug 14, 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
- 2 miles northwest of Anadarko, OK
- People working on it
- 3 people
- Complexity
- Type 4 IncidentOfficial scale from 5 to 1: a Type 1 is the most complex in the country.
- What's burning
- Tall Grass (2.5 feet)
- How it's behaving
- MinimalSmoldering — Burning without flame, in the ground or in roots. Can flare up days later.
- Jurisdiction
- BIA · 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 286 acres of tall grass averaging 2.5 feet in height, the Wichita Hills Fire near Anadarko, Oklahoma, has been active for 12 days since starting on August 14, 2026. Managed by a Type 4 Incident Commander with a modest crew of three personnel, the federal land incident is currently 90 percent contained. The fire has sustained an average daily growth of approximately 24 acres per day in Caddo County.
Current fire behavior is minimal and smoldering, and satellite monitoring supports this stable trajectory with only a single heat detection recorded by NASA FIRMS over the past 48 hours. Fire suppression efforts on this Type 4 incident have accumulated $120,000 in costs under the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
This incident unfolds during the region's typical fire season, which spans from June to October. On a national level, a broader context reveals that 3,068,903 hectares have burned across the country so far in 2026, marking a figure that is 44 percent below the two-decade average.
In context
This wildfire burned in Oklahoma for 12 days. In total it burned about 286 acres — around 1.2 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 3,226,886 hectares have burned so far in 2026 — 41% 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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