September 9, 2026

Fire weather is the story here, and Wyoming is at the center of it.

The National Weather Service offices in Cheyenne and Riverton have red flag warnings in effect covering nine fire weather zones in Wyoming. The Cheyenne warning runs from 11 AM to 8 PM Mountain time Wednesday for the North Laramie Range and adjacent high plains, the North Laramie Valley and Shirley Basin, the Ferris, Seminoe, and Shirley Mountains, central and west Carbon County, the Upper North Platte River Basin, and the North Snowy Range foothills. The Riverton warning covers Natrona County and the Casper Bureau of Land Management district, the Granite, Green, Ferris, and Rattlesnake Mountains, and Casper Mountain through 9 PM Thursday.

These are the only red flag warnings active anywhere in the United States today.

A red flag warning, in the National Weather Service's own words, means critical fire weather conditions are either occurring now or will shortly, and that strong winds, low humidity, and warm temperatures together can contribute to extreme fire behavior. The Storm Prediction Center's fire weather outlook fills in the numbers: west to northwest winds of 10 to 15 miles per hour with local gusts to 20, afternoon humidity dropping into the single digits to low teens, and fuel dryness around the 90th percentile for the date.

The household action on a red flag day is short and specific. Do not burn anything outdoors, including brush piles, trash, and campfires. Do not park a vehicle over dry grass, because a hot exhaust component is a common ignition source. Do not drag trailer chains. Postpone any work with a grinder, welder, or mower on rocks. Most red flag day ignitions are human and accidental.

Fire weather watches, which mean critical conditions are forecast but not yet imminent, cover three areas in Wyoming through Wednesday evening, the Gallatin National Forest and the Wheatland, Sweet Grass, Golden Valley, and Musselshell county areas of Montana through Thursday evening, and nine counties in southwest North Dakota including McKenzie, Dunn, Golden Valley, Billings, Stark, Slope, Hettinger, Bowman, and Adams through Thursday evening.

At the other end of the thermometer, the Riverton office has a freeze warning until 9 AM Mountain time this morning for Jackson Hole, Star Valley, the Upper Green River Basin and its foothills, and south Lincoln County. The instruction is to protect tender plants from the cold. Freeze warnings and red flag warnings on the same morning in the same state is an ordinary September in Wyoming, where the valleys drop below freezing overnight and the afternoons still run dry and windy.

Colorado, South Dakota, and Utah have no active alerts.

The National Interagency Fire Center, which coordinates wildfire response across federal and state agencies, reported 64 uncontained large fires nationally in its September 8 situation report, with the national preparedness level at 4 on a 5 point scale. Year to date the country has recorded 53,665 fires and about 8.4 million acres burned, which the center puts at 125 percent of the ten year average for fire counts and 157 percent for acreage.

Twenty of those uncontained fires are in this region. In Montana, the Sand Creek fire is at 35,509 acres and 36 percent contained, Bobcat Lakes at 10,895 acres and 61 percent, Camp Creek at 9,725 acres and not yet contained, Silvertip at 7,280 acres and 15 percent, Moose at 6,005 acres and 15 percent, and the Rattlesnake Complex at 15,582 acres and 97 percent. Nature Grove, Cooper, and Scimitar are all smaller and at zero containment.

In Colorado, the Aspen Acres fire is at 102,004 acres and 82 percent contained, Willow at 7,534 acres and 80 percent, and Elk at 7,257 acres and 73 percent with structures listed as threatened. In South Dakota, the Needles fire is at 6,017 acres and 45 percent. In Utah, Tom Creek is at 4,991 acres and 95 percent and Slough Canyon at 4,774 acres and 63 percent.

Containment percentage describes how much of the fire's perimeter crews have secured, not how much of the fire is out. A fire at 82 percent still has a live edge. If you live near one, your county emergency management office and the incident's own InciWeb page are where evacuation status actually lives.

South Dakota has an open Federal Emergency Management Agency major disaster declaration, DR-4941, issued September 1 for severe storms, straight line winds, and flooding. It is the only one of the five September 1 declarations that carries Individual Assistance alongside Public Assistance. Individual Assistance is the category that pays households directly, and it can cover temporary housing, home repair, and some uninsured losses. If you had damage in a designated South Dakota county, check whether your county is included and apply at disasterassistance.gov rather than waiting to be contacted.

No power outage events or water system notices are reported across the six states.

No active air quality alerts anywhere in the six states, which is notable given the fire load. Smoke concentration depends on wind direction as much as on fire size, and today's pattern is moving it away from populated areas in this region.

That can change within a day. If you are downwind of one of these fires and the air smells like smoke, the reliable check is airnow.gov rather than the sky, because fine particulate levels do not track well with how hazy things look.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Health Alert Network archive index could not be read again this morning, so we are not able to confirm either way whether a new national health advisory has posted. The most recent notice we could open directly was issued August 11 and is written for clinicians rather than households. If you want to check for yourself, the archive lives at emergency.cdc.gov/han.

The Storm Prediction Center's day 2 fire weather outlook extends elevated conditions Thursday across eastern Idaho, southern Montana, and more of Wyoming, and notes that localized critical conditions are most likely across south central Wyoming where 20 mile per hour west winds line up with single digit humidity. No critical area has been drawn yet. Expect the red flag footprint to hold or grow slightly rather than shrink over the next two days.

The seasonal turn is the other thing worth naming. Early September in the Mountain region runs both hazards at once: fire season has not ended and winter weather has started testing the high valleys. The freeze warning in Jackson Hole this morning is the first note of that. Over the next few weeks the pattern usually shifts toward the first real snow at elevation, which is what finally ends fire season in a normal year.

For a household that means two lists overlap right now. The fire list is defensible space, a packed bag, and knowing your evacuation route. The winter list is the furnace service, the chimney inspection if you burn wood, and the tires. September is the only month where both are comfortable to do.

One safety note that belongs here every year as generators come out for outage season. The Consumer Product Safety Commission's guidance is to operate portable generators outdoors only, at least 20 feet from homes and buildings, with the exhaust pointed away from windows, doors, and vents. Install working carbon monoxide alarms on every level of the home and outside sleeping areas, and test them monthly. If a carbon monoxide alarm sounds, get outside first, then call 911.