If you’re looking out your window in Los Angeles and seeing a hazy sky, your first instinct is probably to check the apps. You want a number. You want to know exactly how many fires are in LA at this very second.
Honestly? The answer is usually a lot more than you think, but way less scary than the headlines make it out to be.
As of mid-January 2026, the "fire season" that used to end in October basically doesn't exist anymore. It's a year-round thing now. But here is the reality: on any given Tuesday, the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) might respond to dozens of "fires," but only one—or none—might be the kind of massive wildfire that makes national news.
The Current Count: How Many Fires Are in LA?
Right now, Southern California is coming off a fairly active early January. While the catastrophic Eaton and Palisades fires of 2025 are technically "over," the scars are still there, and the city is on high alert.
Currently, there are no active major wildfires threatening homes in the Los Angeles basin today, January 16, 2026. However, the LAFD dashboard usually shows between 5 and 15 active "incidents" involving fire at any given hour.
Most of these are:
- Small rubbish fires behind commercial buildings.
- Kitchen flare-ups in apartments.
- The occasional "hot spot" or "flare-up" in a previously burned area like the North Hills or Westchester.
Just this week, on January 13, we saw a "Major Emergency" fire in North Hills. It took over 100 firefighters to put it out. It was a vacant commercial building on Parthenia Street. If you saw the smoke, you probably thought the hills were on fire again. They weren't. It was a structure fire.
That’s the nuance people miss. When you ask "how many fires," you’re usually asking about the brush fires. But the city is constantly burning in small, controlled, or quickly extinguished ways that never hit your Twitter feed.
Why the Number of Fires Feels Higher Than It Is
We live in a state of perpetual "fire anxiety." It's part of being an Angeleno now.
Because of the 2025 season—which, let's be real, was absolutely brutal with over 17,000 homes damaged—every column of smoke looks like the end of the world. But the stats tell a different story. According to CAL FIRE data for early 2026, we’ve actually had a much slower start than last year.
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Year-to-date for 2026, California has seen about 12 wildland fires. Compare that to the 105 fires we had by this same date in 2025.
It’s a massive drop.
The reason? We finally got some decent rain in late December and early January. That moisture basically "reset" the clock on the dead brush. It doesn't mean we’re safe, but it means the "how many fires" number is staying low for now.
What counts as a "fire" in LA?
You’ve got to distinguish between the agencies. The LAFD handles the city—the skyscrapers, the suburbs, the alleys. They deal with roughly 400,000 to 500,000 total incidents a year. Only about 3-4% of those are actual fires.
Then you have CAL FIRE and the L.A. County Fire Department. They handle the "big stuff" in the mountains and the wildland-urban interface. If a fire is under 10 acres and doesn't threaten structures, CAL FIRE might not even list it as an "active incident" on their public map.
So, if you’re looking at a map and it says "Zero Fires," but you see smoke in the San Fernando Valley, it’s probably a structure fire or a small brush clearing incident that hasn't hit the 10-acre threshold.
The "January Flare-Up" Phenomenon
People get confused when they see fires in the winter. "Isn't it supposed to be raining?" sort of.
Los Angeles is weird. We get Santa Ana winds that can kick up in January and February, drying out the "new growth" from early rains. This creates a specific kind of danger.
- The 2025 Palisades Fire Anniversary: We just passed the one-year mark of that disaster. Fire Chief Jaime Moore recently reminded everyone that while the hills look green-ish right now, that's actually "flash fuel."
- The Westchester Incident: Just two days ago, 36 firefighters had to rush to an office building on Sepulveda Boulevard. It was out in 19 minutes.
This is the "LA normal." A fire starts, a dozen trucks show up, it’s dead in twenty minutes. That happens multiple times a day.
How to Track Fires Like a Local
If you actually want to know what’s happening in real-time, stop using Google Maps. It’s too slow.
You need the LAFD Alerts page or the "PulsePoint" app. PulsePoint is what the pros use. It literally pings your phone the second a "Brush Fire" or "Structure Fire" dispatch goes out.
If you see a "Greater Alarm" or "Major Emergency" tag, that's when you should start paying attention. A "Major Emergency" means more than 15 companies (about 100+ people) are on-site. The North Hills fire on Tuesday was one of those. It doesn't mean you need to evacuate, but it means the pros are worried about it spreading.
Actionable Steps for Today
Don't just stare at the smoke. If you're worried about how many fires are in LA because you live near the hills, do these three things right now:
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- Check the "Red Flag" Status: If there's no Red Flag Warning from the National Weather Service, a fire is much less likely to "run" away from firefighters. High humidity is your best friend.
- Clear Your "Zone Zero": The first five feet around your house. If you have dead leaves or mulch touching your siding, get rid of it. This is where most houses actually catch fire—not from a wall of flames, but from flying embers landing in dry gunk.
- Register for NotifyLA: This is the city’s official emergency alert system. If a fire gets big enough that you need to move, this is how they’ll tell you.
The "number" of fires in LA is always changing. It's a living, breathing metric. But as of this morning, the city is mostly just dealing with the typical urban grist—small, manageable blazes that the LAFD handles before you even finish your morning coffee.
Stay vigilant, keep your brush cleared, and keep an eye on the wind. That’s the real LA fire secret: it’s not the fire that kills you; it’s the wind that carries it.