Pilot Fire — Crook County, Oregon
2026 fire · archived record · NIFC lists this incident as “0477 PILOT” · 7 Miles NW from POST, OR
The Pilot Fire burned in Crook County, Oregon, 13 mi (20 km) ESE of Prineville. The last size NIFC published for it was 118 acres, at 100% containment. It was first reported on July 16, 2026, and the cause is recorded as natural.
- Size
- 118 acres
- Contained
- 100%
- Discovered
- July 16, 2026
- Cause
- Natural
- Personnel assigned
- 33
- Complexity
- Type 3 Incident
- Protecting agency
- BLM
- Fuel
- Short Grass (1 foot)
- Fire behaviour
- Minimal
Show this fire on the live map
What the containment figure means
Crews have a control line all the way around this fire. That is not the same as the fire being out — a fire can be 100% contained and still burning inside that line for weeks. NIFC does not report a fire as out until the whole thing is cold.
How far it is from town
Straight-line distance and the direction you would look from each town to reach the fire's reported point of origin. A large fire is tens of miles across, so its nearest edge is closer than this — these are distances to the origin point NIFC publishes, not to the fire's edge.
| Town | Distance | Direction | County |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prineville | 13 mi (20 km) | ESE | Crook |
| Redmond | 28 mi (45 km) | E | Deschutes |
| Mitchell | 34 mi (55 km) | SW | Wheeler |
| Bend | 36 mi (58 km) | ENE | Deschutes |
| Madras | 39 mi (63 km) | SE | Jefferson |
Mapped perimeter
The mapped perimeter encloses 126 acres, as of the mapping run on Jul 17, 2026, 9:15 AM PDT. Perimeter acreage and reported acreage routinely disagree, and the mapped figure can go down when a fire is flown or walked properly for the first time — that is a correction to the map, not the fire shrinking.
Where to get official information
FireWatcher does not carry evacuation levels and is not an official source. Evacuation levels for this fire are issued by the Crook County Sheriff's Office, not by any of the feeds on this page. If you are deciding whether to leave, use these:
- OR-Alert — the state's emergency alert system. Sign up before you need it.
- Central Oregon Fire Info — the interagency public information site for fires in this region.
- InciWeb — official incident pages for larger fires, published by the managing agency.
- NWS Pendleton and NWS Portland — red flag warnings and fire weather watches.
Other fires burning nearby
- Henry Fire
29,844 acres · 97% contained · Crook County
- Coyote Fire
17,460 acres · 96% contained · Crook County
- Green Mountain Fire
2,136 acres · 100% contained · Crook County
- Crosswhite Fire
342,923 acres · 93% contained · Wheeler County
- Second Flat Fire
105,854 acres · 99% contained · Harney County
- Grasshopper Fire
93,999 acres · 96% contained · Wasco County
- Porcupine Ridge Fire
79,200 acres · 100% contained · Gilliam County
- Shingle Fire
73,183 acres · 95% contained · Wheeler County
Where these numbers come from
Incident name, acreage, containment, cause, personnel and complexity are read straight from the National Interagency Fire Center's WFIGS interagency feed (CC-BY 3.0), which FireWatcher polls every five minutes; this page was built from the poll at Sep 11, 2026, 1:14 PM PDT (2 minutes ago). Perimeters come from the same source. Satellite heat is NASA FIRMS VIIRS. Weather is the National Weather Service. Aircraft positions are ADS-B via adsb.lol (ODbL 1.0). Camera positions are ALERTWest / University of Oregon and ODOT TripCheck. Distances are computed here from the published point of origin.
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