NEWS CENTER MAINE • November 10, 2025
Western states have seen terrible forest and wildland fires in recent years, but Maine normally gets enough rain to minimize fire danger. This year has been different. As drought became severe in many parts of the state and then extreme in some, the Maine Forest Service was getting prepared. “Everything, from surface fuel to deep ground fuels, were very dry, very available to burn,” Joe Mints, director of forest fire training for the Maine Forest Service, said. This year, he says, rivaled the worst fire year in Maine’s modern history. “This year [has been] as close as we’ve been to the conditions of 1947.” And while the forest service once relied on a network of fire towers around Maine to watch the woods, there are now fire-spotting satellites. It was, in fact, a busy year for fires in Maine. There were 828 wildfires reported so far this year, but those fires burned a total of just 512 acres.