National fire preparedness at highest level

The national fire preparedness level has this week been upgraded to a level five – the highest level of wildland fire activity on the National Interagency Fire Center’s scale.

At this level, several geographic areas across the nation are experiencing large, complex fire incidents that have the potential to exhaust national wildland firefighting resources. Additionally, at least 80% of the country’s incident management teams and wildland firefighting personnel are committed to incidents.

At level five, all fire-qualified federal employees become available for wildlife response.

The level has be...