Guide
Fire: what is burning, and burn bans
Checked September 30, 2026 against the Mississippi Forestry Commission and the National Interagency Fire Center.
Mississippi publishes no fire danger level for a county, so the Fire tile on the Mississippi board answers two other questions: is anything burning near here, and is my county under a burn ban.
Burn bans: the Forestry Commission’s list
A county’s Board of Supervisors asks for a burn ban and the Mississippi Forestry Commission (MFC) approves it. MFC lists every county under a ban on its burn ban page, with the day it started, the day it runs through and the exemptions it allows. The tile reads that list. A county that is not on it has no ban.
- Every ban runs through midnight of its end date. In MFC’s words, “All burn bans expire at midnight on the stated date of expiration.” The tile stops showing a ban at that midnight, even if the row is still on MFC’s page.
- The exemptions are numbered, and the tile spells them out: 1, the Forestry Commission; 2, Certified Burn Managers; 3, county fire services; 4, commercial contractors with heavy equipment who follow MDEQ’s rules; 5, agricultural field burns; 6, other exemptions MFC lists.
- What a ban forbids, in MFC’s words: “Anything with an open flame that produces an ember is not allowed during a burn ban” — campfires, bonfires, fire pits and rings, burn barrels, debris and field burning.
- No ban is not permission. MFC also stops burning under a Red Flag Warning or its own Fire Alert, and a city can ban burning of its own. Ask your county, your city or your fire department before lighting anything.
On September 30, 2026 nineteen Mississippi counties were under a ban. Hancock, Harrison and Jackson were not.
What is burning: the interagency list
The fires on the tile come from the National Interagency Fire Center’s list of current wildfires, the same list the live map draws. The tile shows wildfires in Hancock, Harrison and Jackson counties or close enough to matter, and leaves out prescribed burns. A fire that is fully contained drops off a week after it was found.
- It is not every fire. The list holds fires reported to the federal and state fire agencies. Local fire departments put out most grass and woods fires on this coast without them. An empty list means nothing nearby has been reported to it, not that nothing is burning.
- Acres and per cent contained are the last figures reported, not live measurements. Contained does not mean out.
- Distance is a straight line from your town to where the fire was reported, not a driving distance, and it says nothing about where the smoke will go.
If you see a fire
Call 911. Nothing on this site reports a fire to anyone.
Sources
- Mississippi Forestry Commission, burn bans — the county list, the exemptions and what a ban forbids
- National Interagency Fire Center, open data — the current wildfire list