Guide

Fire: what is burning, and burning debris

Checked September 24, 2026 against CAL FIRE, the North Coast Unified Air Quality Management District, the Mendocino County Air Quality Management District, Humboldt County and Del Norte County; the Sonoma and Marin half added September 22, 2026 against CAL FIRE, Sonoma County’s air-district map, the Northern Sonoma County district and the Bay Area district; San Mateo added September 23, 2026 against CAL FIRE’s own burn table and the Bay Area district; San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura added September 24, 2026 against CAL FIRE’s incident list and the three counties’ own air pollution control districts; Los Angeles and Orange the same day against CAL FIRE’s incident list and the South Coast Air Quality Management District; San Diego the same day against CAL FIRE’s incident list and burn table and the San Diego County district.

This tile gives no fire danger rating, and the reason is simple: CAL FIRE publishes no daily fire danger level for any of the counties these boards cover, from Del Norte to San Diego. So instead of a rating, it shows the two things the agencies here do publish — what is burning near this coast, and whether anything may be burned.

What is burning

The list comes from CAL FIRE’s incident list, filtered to the counties the board you are reading covers and to anything close enough to them to matter — a fire ten miles into Trinity can shut SR 299 and put the Eel valley under smoke. The north coast board reads Del Norte and Humboldt, the CAL FIRE Humboldt–Del Norte Unit. The Mendocino coast board reads Mendocino County, the CAL FIRE Mendocino Unit, whose inland half runs back to the Lake County line — which is where the smoke on that coast usually comes from. The Sonoma and Marin board reads Sonoma and Marin, and those two counties are not one agency: Sonoma is the CAL FIRE Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit, whose ground runs east across the valleys that burned in 2017 and 2019, while Marin runs its own fire department — one of the handful of California counties where CAL FIRE does not hold the state responsibility area — so Marin County Fire answers for Marin and CAL FIRE’s list simply reports what happens there. The San Mateo board reads San Mateo County, the CAL FIRE San Mateo-Santa Cruz Unit (CZU) — one unit for the whole county, which after Sonoma and Marin is worth saying plainly. The list it is filtered through reaches four miles into Santa Cruz County as well, because the line is at Ga­zos Creek and Año Nuevo and a fire a mile south of it is a Pescadero reader’s fire. The Santa Cruz board reads Santa Cruz County, the same unit with its own county’s name. The Monterey board reads Monterey County, the CAL FIRE San Benito-Monterey Unit (BEU), and its list reaches back across the Santa Lucia Range on purpose: the fires that put smoke on the Big Sur coast start on the inland side of the crest, and the night that board was built CAL FIRE was listing two of them in the county over 25,000 acres each. Burn days on both bay boards are the Monterey Bay Air Resources District’s, not the Bay Area’s. The San Francisco board reads San Francisco, and there CAL FIRE holds no ground at all: the San Francisco Fire Department answers for the whole city, CAL FIRE’s list reports what happens there, and the list is filtered to reach the Marin Headlands and the East Bay hills because a fire on Tamalpais or above Oakland is the smoke on the Marina. There is no open burning in the city and no burn status to read. The San Luis Obispo board reads San Luis Obispo County, the CAL FIRE San Luis Obispo Unit (SLU), and its list reaches back over the Santa Lucias and the La Panza on purpose, because the smoke on those beaches comes down from the ranges behind them. Burn days there are the county’s own San Luis Obispo County Air Pollution Control District’s. The Santa Barbara board reads Santa Barbara County, and it is Marin’s shape again: the Santa Barbara County Fire Department holds the state responsibility area under contract, CAL FIRE’s list reports what happens there, and CAL FIRE’s burn page carries a signpost for the county rather than a status, which the tile prints as not published. Its list reaches the whole front of the Santa Ynez range, because that front is where the Thomas, the Alisal and the Cave fires came down to this coast. Burn days are the county APCD’s, which sends you on to the county fire department’s burn-day map and line. The Ventura board reads Ventura County and is the same shape: the Ventura County Fire Department holds the ground under contract, and the list reaches over the ranges behind the plain, because the Thomas started at Santa Paula and burned to the sea at the Rincon and the Woolsey came over from Los Angeles to the Mugu coast. The Los Angeles board reads Los Angeles County, the biggest contract county: the Los Angeles County Fire Department holds the state ground, while the cities of Los Angeles and Long Beach run their own departments. The list covers the Santa Monica Mountains behind Malibu, where this shore’s fires have been — the Woolsey in 2018, the Franklin in 2024, the Palisades in 2025 — and reaches out to Catalina. The Orange board reads Orange County, another contract county: the Orange County Fire Authority holds the state ground, and Huntington Beach, Newport Beach and Laguna Beach run their own city departments. The list covers the San Joaquin Hills behind Laguna and the Santa Ana foothills, where this coast’s fires come from — the Laguna fire of 1993, the Coastal fire at Laguna Niguel in 2022. The San Diego board reads San Diego County, and here CAL FIRE is the county’s own: the CAL FIRE San Diego Unit works with the county fire authority, and CAL FIRE’s burn table carries a status of its own for the county — burning suspended since May 1, 2026 the day this was written. The list covers the mesas and canyons behind the coast, where the Cedar, Witch and Lilac fires ran toward the sea. The East Bay board reads Alameda and Contra Costa counties: CAL FIRE’s Santa Clara Unit holds the state ground in the hills behind the shore, and the cities on the water — Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda, Richmond — run their own departments. The list covers the Berkeley and Oakland hills, where the 1991 fire burned, and the ridges along the strait. The North Bay board reads Napa and Solano counties: CAL FIRE’s Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit holds the state ground in the hills, and Vallejo, Benicia, Suisun City, Rio Vista and Napa run their own departments. The list covers the hills either side of the Napa Valley, where the 2017 and 2020 fires burned, and the grassland ridges above the strait and the Delta.

It is not every fire, and it is not a detection system. It carries the incidents agencies report to CAL FIRE. A quarter-acre roadside fire that an engine put out before lunch was never in it, and a fire that started twenty minutes ago may not be in it yet. If you can see smoke, the list is not the thing to check — call 911 and read your county’s alerts.

The numbers are CAL FIRE’s

• Acres is what CAL FIRE last published, not what is burning this minute. On a moving fire it is usually behind.
• Per cent contained means line held around the fire, not put out. A fire at 95 per cent can still run if the wind changes, and a fire at 100 per cent can smoulder inside the line for weeks.
• Containment not stated is what the tile says when CAL FIRE has published no figure. It does not mean nought.
• Each row carries the time CAL FIRE last updated it. A fire nobody has updated in three days is usually a fire nobody is worried about any more, but the tile will not say so for them.

Whose fire it is

The list names the agency running each incident, and on this coast that is often not CAL FIRE. On the north coast, the Hoopa Valley Tribe’s own fire department, the Yurok Tribe’s, Six Rivers National Forest, a county department: all of them appear. The list is a report of incidents, not a claim of jurisdiction, and the tile does not turn one into the other.

How far away it is

Every row says how far the fire is from your own town, and which way. That is straight-line distance from the point CAL FIRE published, worked out on your phone — not driving distance, and not a smoke forecast. It is there because “a fire in Humboldt County” can mean Hoopa, forty-five miles inland, or Fortuna, which are different days entirely.

Burning debris

Two agencies have to agree before you may light a pile, and the board shows one of them.

Both were suspended-side as this was written: CAL FIRE has had burning suspended in Humboldt and Del Norte since June 15, 2026, across all State Responsibility Area land. The tile prints CAL FIRE’s own phrase, “All SRA”, rather than softening it into “everywhere”: State Responsibility Area is the land CAL FIRE protects, which is not every acre in a county. Federal land has its own rules, and so does land inside a city.

Which air district is yours depends where you are, and the boards on this coast span eleven of them. Del Norte and Humboldt are the North Coast Unified district; Mendocino County has its own, the Mendocino County Air Quality Management District. The Sonoma coast is not the Bay Area’s. Sonoma County is split between two districts, and the county’s own map puts The Sea Ranch, Gualala, Annapolis, Cazadero, Jenner, Duncans Mills, Bodega, Bodega Bay and part of Valley Ford in the Northern Sonoma County district — which is every Sonoma town on that board. Marin, the rest of Valley Ford and the south of Sonoma County are the Bay Area district’s, and so is the whole of San Mateo County — one district for that board, with no line through it.

A permit itself comes from your own air district — in Del Norte and Humboldt that is NCUAQMD’s online portal — and CAL FIRE requires one for outdoor burning on SRA land from May 1. When a suspension is on, the permit does not override it. In Marin, where CAL FIRE holds no state responsibility area, it is Marin County Fire and your own fire district that say whether you may burn at all.

Who to ring

Each county board carries its own numbers in its “Call, do not guess” list at the foot of the page, and the air district for every board is in the table above. The north coast’s, for Del Norte and Humboldt:

Sources

• CAL FIRE incidents — the list the tile reads
• CAL FIRE current burn status — the burn row, county by county
• North Coast Unified AQMD burn day status — Del Norte and Humboldt
• Mendocino County Air Quality Management District and the Air Resources Board’s listing of it — Mendocino’s burn day line and office
• Cal OES, alerts in your county
• CAL FIRE and the North Coast Unified air district