Reference · built on requestCommons signalHazards & public safety

CAL FIRE Incidents

Active and recent California wildfire incidents with acres burned, containment and coordinates from the CAL FIRE incidents API.

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About

CAL FIRE, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, publishes the incidents it tracks on fire.ca.gov. The site's incident list is backed by a JSON endpoint on incidents.fire.ca.gov, GetIncidents, which returns the featured incidents plus statewide totals for acres, incidents, fatalities and structures, and a year's incidents when you pass a year parameter. Each incident carries its name, county list, administrative unit, coordinates, acres burned, percent contained, start and update timestamps, and counts of personnel, crews, engines and aircraft when reported.

Through Fibric, an operator polls the endpoint, matches incidents to your California sites and lanes, and proposes a hold or a notice for a person to approve.

This is a reference listing. It documents what Fibric would read from CAL FIRE Incidents and what it could propose, based on the publisher's published interfaces. Fibric builds it under a managed deployment when you request it; selecting it here installs nothing.

Inputs

  • Featured incidents in the Incidents array with UniqueId, Name, Location, Latitude, Longitude, AdminUnit, Counties and CountyIds
  • Size and progress: AcresBurned, PercentContained, Started, Updated, Extinguished, Status, Active, Final and MajorIncident
  • Impact counts when reported: StructuresDestroyed, StructuresDamaged, StructuresThreatened, StructuresEvacuated, Injuries and Fatalities
  • Resources assigned when reported: PersonnelInvolved, CrewsInvolved, Engines, Dozers, WaterTenders, Helicopters and AirTankers
  • Statewide totals in the same response: AllAcres, AllIncidentCount, AllFatalities and AllStructures, plus MatchedIncidentCount
  • A CanonicalUrl to the incident page on fire.ca.gov, an ExternalIncidentLink field, and a CalFireIncident flag
  • A year query parameter that returns that year's incidents, so a past season can be reloaded

Proposed actions

Read-only. This feed informs operators; it changes nothing.

Proposed actions are target capabilities. Every action runs propose-first and needs a validated deployment and the appropriate permissions.

What you can build

  • Hold California deliveries near an active incident

    Match each active incident's coordinates and counties against the day's California stops and propose a hold on routes within your set distance, with AcresBurned and PercentContained in the note.

    With Weather Hold

  • Tell a site when containment changes

    Track PercentContained and Updated for incidents near your sites and draft a notice when an incident grows or its Status changes, for a manager to send.

    With Severe Weather Notice

  • Re-sequence routes around a growing fire

    When a MajorIncident sits in a county on today's route, propose a new stop order that avoids the area and keep the original order for comparison.

    With Route Resequence

  • Brief the morning with new incidents

    List incidents Started since yesterday within your counties, with acres, containment and AdminUnit, in the morning brief for a person to read.

    With Morning Brief

Requirements

  • Your California sites, routes or lanes as coordinates to match against incident Latitude and Longitude
  • A poller keyed to the Updated timestamp, since the endpoint is request-response and no push, webhook or RSS is documented
  • Handling for nulls: FuelType, ControlStatement, ConditionStatement and the structure and resource counts are often null
  • A rule for the Featured flag, since the default response lists featured incidents and the year parameter lists a whole year
Authentication
None. GetIncidents answers unauthenticated GET requests; no key or registration is documented, and other HTTP methods are refused.

Limits

  • Coverage is the incidents CAL FIRE lists for California; each incident is a single point, with no perimeter geometry
  • The endpoint has no published documentation; field names and the year parameter are as observed in its responses
  • The fire.ca.gov website refuses non-browser clients, so the JSON endpoint is the interface rather than the HTML pages
  • The State of California disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of its website contents

Access and pricing

Reference listing. Public feed access is separate from Fibric integration. If you request this feed, your quote covers the build, usage, and support.

Request CAL FIRE Incidents ↗

Questions and answers

What does the default GetIncidents response contain?
An object with an Incidents array of featured incidents, a duplicate ListIncidents array, an AllYearIncidents array for the year, MatchedIncidentCount, and the statewide totals AllAcres, AllIncidentCount, AllFatalities and AllStructures.
Can I pull a past season?
Yes. Adding a year query parameter, for example year=2025, returns that year's incidents in the Incidents array with the same fields, including Started, Updated, AcresBurned and PercentContained.
Is there a key, a rate limit or a license?
No key is documented and no rate limit is published. The State of California says information on its websites is considered in the public domain unless otherwise indicated, may be distributed or copied as permitted by law, and carries no warranty of any kind.
Ask about CAL FIRE Incidents

Ask about the capabilities and requirements in this listing.

For project-specific requirements, contact Fibric.

This Commons signal listing is developed, published, and supported by Fibric. It reads public data published by California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, CAL FIRE (incidents.fire.ca.gov). Upstream agencies and projects are the property of their respective owners, who are not affiliated with Fibric and do not sponsor or endorse this listing. Trademark policy