Press & media

The short version

A free, public tool that maps active wildfires against the roughly 2,600 named public lands in the United States and gives each one a plain-language verdict on whether it is worth visiting right now.

It is one of several free public tools built by More Than Just Parks, an independent, reader-funded public lands advocacy organization founded by Jim and Will Pattiz.

Fact sheet

• What it coversEvery national park, national forest, wilderness area, national monument, and wildlife refuge in the country, roughly 2,600 named units.
• What is newUnlike incident-first fire maps, it is organized around the destinations people visit, with a threat level and a go / check-first / avoid verdict for each.
• Update cadenceFire data refreshes multiple times daily through fire season; smoke and air quality on their own schedules.
• CostFree, no account required.

Data sources

NIFC/IRWIN active incidents, NASA FIRMS (VIIRS) satellite detections, NOAA HMS smoke analysis, EPA AirNow, and USGS PAD-US 4.0 boundaries. Full detail and methodology are on the methodology page.

Citing and using the tool

You are welcome to reference, screenshot, and link to the tool in reporting, with attribution to “More Than Just Parks” and a link to the page. Please do not present our verdicts or estimates as official government determinations; they are our reading of public data, and the underlying agencies are the authoritative source. We do not offer a public data API or bulk data export.

For interviews, a founder quote, high-resolution assets, custom data pulls for a story, or to verify a number before you publish, get in touch and we’ll turn it around quickly.

Press contact

ask@morethanjustparks.com
More Than Just Parks · morethanjustparks.com