LIVE · updated

Fires Near Chicago, IL

Live wildfire tracking around Chicago: every active fire within 300 miles with distance, size, containment, wind, smoke, and air quality, from official US sources.

0
Fires within 100 mi
None
Nearest fire (300 mi scan)
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Weather alerts
26
Air quality · Good

All clear

Live risk assessment for Chicago, IL

Live

No significant wildfire threat near this location right now.

  • No active fires within 50 miles, no fire weather alerts, and clean air right now.
There are currently 17 active fires within 300 miles of Chicago, IL. None are inside Chicago city limits. No firefighting aircraft have been active within 50 miles of Chicago, IL in the past 12 hours.
Air quality measured at the CHI_SP monitor 5 miles away is good (AQI 26).
Early signal: satellite heat detected nearby. Satellites picked up 29 heat detections in the last 24 hours, the closest about 17 miles away, that do not match any officially reported fire. Detections like this are often the first public sign of a new ignition, though they can also be industrial heat or agricultural burning. Turn on the Satellite heat layer on the map below and check back over the next few hours.

House pin: Chicago, IL. Bold outline: Chicago city limits. Dashed rings show distance from the city center. Red or amber shaded zones are active evacuation areas.

Evacuation status

Illinois does not publish a live evacuation zone feed covering this location yet, so we cannot confirm zone-level status here either way. During an active fire, check the county emergency links in the resources section below; that is where evacuation notices are posted first.

Is there a fire near me?

Enter any US or Canadian address or town for an instant risk report: nearby fires, wind, smoke, air quality, and evacuation alerts.

Fires by distance

City limits
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no fires
≤ 25 mi
0
no fires
≤ 50 mi
0
no fires
≤ 100 mi
0
no fires
≤ 200 mi
5
0 acres
≤ 300 mi
17
6 acres

This season vs the last decade

0% of an average year
Burned so far in 20260 acres
10-year average (2016–2025, full year)17 acres

So far in 2026, 0 acres have burned within 25 miles of Chicago, 0% of the 17 acres burned in an average full year from 2016 to 2025.

Active fires near Chicago, IL

Every active fire within 300 miles, closest first.

Want the whole state? See the live Illinois wildfire map →

Latest updates on fires near Chicago

Generated automatically from official feeds the moment they change: size, containment, evacuation zones, aircraft, and incident team updates.

  1. Quartz Fire · New perimeter mapped at 3 acres (national perimeter feed)

    16 days ago · September 9, 2026

  2. Tractor Fire · New perimeter mapped at 2 acres (national perimeter feed)

    16 days ago · September 9, 2026

Historic fires near Chicago

The largest wildfires on record within 100 miles.

Goose Lake
2003
600 acres · 50 mi away
Rock Co. Fire
2016
500 acres · 97 mi away
Zion
2003
450 acres · 37 mi away
Bingo Fire - Douglas Center
2002
395 acres · 27 mi away
Railroad
2012
291 acres · 27 mi away
Illinois Beach
2005
238 acres · 40 mi away

Wildfire history near you

How close have major wildfires come to your home in Illinois? Search any US or Canadian address to see the largest fires on record nearby, with size, year, and impact, on a radius map.