Dry storms that emerged over the Cascade Range on the night of July 15, 2026, struck Oregon and Washington with thousands of lightning strikes as they moved east across the states. By the next day, NASA satellites had begun detecting large numbers of wildfires across central and eastern Oregon.

Although initially small, these fires intensified as they were fanned by gusty winds and passed through landscapes parched by extreme drought and scorched by summer heat. When NASA’s Aqua satellite captured the image shown above on the afternoon of July 26, smoke was pouring northeast from dozens of large fires that together had charred hundreds of square miles. The fires produced a blanket of haze, prompting state officials to issue air quality advisories for eastern Oregon.

Many communities faced evacuation orders as more than 10,000 firefighters battled wildfires across the state. On the day the image was captured, the largest active fires were the Hay Creek Complex, Brewer, Big Grass, Akawa Butte, and Powder River fires. Several of these fires were less than 5 percent contained, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. State officials invoked the Oregon Emergency Conflagration Act to protect communities as they responded to particularly threatening fires, such as the Shingle, Bench, Beachcomb and Second Flat fires.

The government’s satellite data is part of a global system of observations used to track fire behavior and analyze emerging trends. Among the real-time wildfire monitoring tools that NASA makes available are FIRMS (Fire Information for Resource Management System), the Worldview browser and Fire Event Explorer.

As of July 27, 2026, fires in Oregon had burned more than one million acres, according to media reports. Meanwhile, the National Interagency Fire Center reported that fires had burned more than 4 million acres across the United States. The 10-year average (2016-2025) for this point in the season is 3.4 million acres.

NASA Earth Observatory image by Michala Garrison, using NASA MODIS data LAUNCH EOSDIS and GIBS/worldview. Story by Adam Voiland.

• Central Oregon Fire Information (July 27, 2026) The complete source for fire, health and air quality information in Central Oregon. Accessed July 27, 2026.
• KGW8 (July 27, 2026) Latest updates on Oregon wildfires: Fires burning more than 1 million acres across the state. Accessed July 27, 2026.
• NASA Earthdata (2026) Wildfires. Accessed July 27, 2026.
• National Interagency Fire Center (2026) Oregon. Accessed July 27, 2026.
• Northwest Interagency Coordination Center (2026, July 27) Official fire information. Accessed July 27, 2026.
• OPB (2026, July 27) Oregon wildfires break out over the weekend with no signs of slowing down. Accessed July 27, 2026.
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