Guide

Fire: what is burning, and burning debris

Checked September 18, 2026 against CAL FIRE, the North Coast Unified Air Quality Management District, Humboldt County and Del Norte County.

This tile answers a different question from the fire tile on a board further north, and the reason is simple: nobody publishes a fire danger level for Del Norte or Humboldt. 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 fires in Del Norte and Humboldt and to anything close enough to either to matter here — a fire ten miles into Trinity can shut SR 299 and put the Eel valley under smoke.

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. 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.

For the burn day, ring the district’s recorded line on 866-BURNDAY or (707) 443-7665, or read their burn day page. Your permit says which of the three burn zones you are in. The district’s office is (707) 443-3093.

A permit itself comes from the air district (their 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.

Who to ring

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
• CAL FIRE and the air district