2026 marked biggest fire year in this decade — by far

Oregon’s 2026 wildfire season is coming to a close after a record-breaking year that saw more than 2.5 million acres burn across the state — well ahead of any other year this decade. As of Oct. 13, large fires had burned 2,542,991 acres in Oregon, according to Jennifer Risdal, public information officer for the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center. That’s an annual record for the state and more than double the acreage burned in 2024, the next-highest year of this decade. By comparison, just over 326,000 acres burned in 2025, making this year’s total an especially sharp departure from last year’s relatively quiet season. Even the destructive 2020 fire season, when about 1.14 million acres burned across Oregon, falls well short of this year’s total. The largest fire in Oregon this year was the Coleman Creek Fire, which burned 308,863 acres across Malheur and Harney counties. It ranks as the sixth-largest fire in state history.

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