The Map Has Shifted
Sit down. Pull up the U.S. Drought Monitor from January 2026. Look at it. 69% of the continental United States is under drought conditions. Let that sink in. More than two-thirds of the country is dry — and some of it is bone-dry in places we're not used to worrying about.
Now here's the twist that nobody outside the fire service is talking about: California — the state we've associated with catastrophic wildfire for the last two decades — became drought-free on January 6, 2026, for the first time since the year 2000. The atmospheric rivers hammered the state through late 2025 and into January. Reservoirs are full. Snowpack is above average. For the first time in a generation, California is not the primary wildfire concern.
Texas is.
Texas: The Numbers Don't Lie
As of late January 2026, 69% of Texas is under moderate to exceptional drought. A year ago, that number was 41%. The trend line is steep and it's heading the wrong direction.
The Texas A&M Forest Service has been tracking wildfire activity since October 2025, and the data is alarming. Wildfire response in Texas is trending 136% above normal for the October-through-January period. In raw numbers, that's 434 wildfires burning 11,425 acres in just four months — and that's before we hit the traditional spring fire season, which in Texas typically peaks from February through May.
I've worked wildland fires across the Eastern Seaboard. I've done mutual aid deployments to California. But what's shaping up in Texas and the Southern Plains this year feels different, and I want to explain why.
The Fuel Problem West of I-35
Drive west of Interstate 35 in Texas and you'll see it: miles of heavy grass. The 2024 and early 2025 growing seasons were generous in parts of the state. Rain came at the right times, and the grass grew tall and thick. Then the rain stopped. The drought took hold. And all that green grass cured into heavy fine fuel loads — dry, continuous, and ready to burn.
Fine fuels are the engine of fast-moving grass fires. A grass fire doesn't behave like a forest fire. It moves faster — sometimes much faster. Wind-driven grass fires in the Southern Plains can reach speeds of 40 to 60 miles per hour under extreme conditions. They outrun engines. They outrun people. And they burn everything in their path.
If you're a wildland firefighter or considering that career path, understand this: the Southern Plains fire environment is one of the most dangerous in the country precisely because it looks harmless. Flat terrain, open grassland, nothing but sky. Then the wind shifts, and you've got a wall of fire moving at highway speed with no natural barriers to stop it.
The Historical Pattern
Here's a statistic that should frame your thinking: since 2005, fires in the Southern Plains have accounted for just 3% of all U.S. wildfires but 49% of all acres burned. Three percent of the fires. Nearly half the acreage. That disproportion tells you everything about the scale and speed of grassland fire in this region.
The Smokehouse Creek Fire in the Texas Panhandle in February 2024 burned over a million acres in a matter of days. It was the largest wildfire in Texas history and one of the largest in U.S. history. The conditions that produced that fire — drought, heavy grass loads, and extreme wind — are present again in 2026.
La Nina: The Climate Driver
The current La Nina pattern is reinforcing the drought across the southern tier of the United States. La Nina shifts the jet stream northward, which pushes storm tracks away from Texas, the Gulf Coast, and the Southeast. The result: warmer and drier conditions through at least spring 2026.
For fire weather, La Nina in the Southern Plains means:
- Below-normal precipitation continuing through the spring fire season
- Above-normal temperatures accelerating fuel drying and increasing fire behavior potential
- Stronger and more frequent dry cold fronts bringing wind events that drive large fire runs
- Extended fire season with above-normal activity potentially lasting into early summer
This isn't speculation. This is the National Interagency Fire Center talking. The NIFC seasonal outlook projects above-normal wildfire risk for Texas, Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas through at least May 2026.
The Southeast: Don't Sleep on This
Texas gets the headline, but the Southeast is facing its own elevated risk. Florida's dry season is underway with below-normal rainfall. Georgia and the Carolinas are dealing with drought conditions that have persisted since fall 2025. The combination of drought-stressed vegetation, dormant-season dryness, and La Nina-driven warmth creates fire-favorable conditions across a region that many people don't associate with major wildfire events.
Southeastern fires tend to be different from Western fires. They burn in different fuel types — pine understory, palmetto, swamp margins that have dried out. They produce heavy smoke that can affect populated areas for weeks. And they stress departments that may not have the same depth of wildland firefighting capability as their Western counterparts.
If you're a fire chief in the Southeast, this is the time to assess your wildland readiness. Review your mutual aid agreements. Check your wildland PPE inventory. Make sure your officers have completed at minimum the S-130/S-190 basic wildland fire training. Don't wait for the first smoke column to realize you're not prepared.
What We Need to Do: Tactical Priorities
I'm going to lay out what I'd be telling my crews if we were preparing for deployment to the Southern Plains or Southeast this spring. This is practical, operational-level guidance.
For Wildland Crews and Strike Teams
- Fitness first. Grass fires require aggressive physical effort — fast hose lays, rapid anchor-point establishment, extended periods of hiking in full gear across broken terrain. If your pack test is stale, get current. Now.
- Refresh your LCES. Lookouts, Communications, Escape Routes, Safety Zones. In flat grassland, your escape route might be a plowed fire break or a paved road. Identify them before you engage. On the Southern Plains, natural safety zones are scarce.
- Study the Smokehouse Creek after-action. Understand how that fire developed, how fast it moved, and where things went wrong. The conditions this year are comparable. Learn from it before you relive it.
- Engine placement discipline. Wind-driven grass fires can overrun apparatus. Park engines in the black when possible. Keep them pointed for egress. Never park in unburned fuel on the lee side of a fire.
For Structural Departments in At-Risk Areas
- WUI pre-planning. Identify structures in the wildland-urban interface in your response area. Pre-plan defensive positions. Know which homes are defensible and which ones aren't — before you're making that decision at 2 AM with a fire on the ridge.
- Community engagement. Defensible space, evacuation routes, ready-set-go messaging. Start now. By the time the fire is visible, it's too late for prevention.
- Mutual aid coordination. Talk to your neighboring departments. Update contact lists. Run a tabletop exercise for a large wildfire that exceeds your resources. Know who's coming and how long it takes them to get there.
For Incident Commanders and Chief Officers
- Pre-position resources during red flag warnings. Don't wait for the report of fire. When the National Weather Service issues a red flag warning, staff up and stage. Every minute of delay in initial attack on a wind-driven grass fire translates to exponentially more acreage burned.
- Type 3 incident management readiness. Most wildland fires in the Southern Plains transition from initial attack to extended attack quickly. Have your Type 3 organization roster current and ready to activate. If you don't have enough qualified personnel, partner with neighboring jurisdictions.
- Air operations coordination. Large-air-tanker and helicopter availability is managed nationally. If multiple large fires ignite simultaneously — which is exactly what La Nina wind events produce — air resources will be prioritized. Have a plan that doesn't depend on aerial support for the first 12 to 24 hours.
The Recruitment Connection
Every wildfire season reminds us of the same truth: we need more people. The fire service is facing a nationwide staffing shortage that hits especially hard during wildfire season, when departments have to maintain local coverage while deploying crews to out-of-area incidents.
If you're reading this and you're not in the fire service yet — we need you. This isn't a recruitment pitch. It's a statement of operational reality. The workload is increasing. The risk is increasing. And the number of trained personnel available to manage that risk is not keeping pace.
Wildland firefighting is physically demanding, tactically challenging, and deeply rewarding work. If the idea of going head-to-head with a 50,000-acre grass fire appeals to you, there's a career waiting.
Watching the Weather
We're in February. The Southern Plains fire season is just beginning to ramp up. If La Nina holds — and every indication is that it will — March through May will be the critical window. The combination of drought, heavy fuel loads, and wind events could produce significant fire activity across Texas and the Southeast.
I'll be watching the same things I always watch: the Drought Monitor, the NIFC outlooks, the red flag warnings, and the spot weather forecasts. But this year, I'm watching Texas more closely than I've watched any state in a long time.
The conditions are set. The fuel is loaded. The drought is deep. The only variable left is the wind — and in the Southern Plains, the wind always comes.
Get your gear ready. Check your fitness. Brief your crews. This one's going to be a long season.