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Wildfire alert in the Western U.S. reaches its highest level

Wildfires have now scorched four million acres of land in the U.S. Federal fire managers say all of the country's resources are currently deployed to major fires.

Copyright 2026 NPR

Kirk Siegler
Kirk Siegler is a national correspondent for NPR News. As a roving reporter, he covers the western U.S. with an emphasis on rural issues, water and the effects of climate change on smaller communities and former natural resource dependent towns. Recent assignments have taken him to the U.S. states of Nevada and Arizona where indigenous groups are protesting mines proposed on ancestral lands that are also seen as key to the Biden administration's goals of transforming the U.S. transportation grid to electricity.

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