Floods, fires and heat struck across 3,754 counties in August 2026

A week of rain drowned the Midwest

The month's deadliest event built slowly and then broke fast. A week of heavy rain across Indiana, Illinois, Ohio and neighboring states peaked on August 12 and 14, when 229 and 227 flash flood warnings went out on those two days alone. August 11 was the single busiest day of the month across all hazards, with 2,303 emergency alerts sent nationwide — tornado warnings and flood warnings arriving together as the same storm complex moved east.

In Indiana, CNN reported at least seven deaths as of August 14. NPR reported that at least five states were affected and that thousands of people had been displaced. Those two accounts, from separate newsrooms, describe the same event our archive recorded at its peak.

Ohio was struck earlier in the sequence. On August 10, flash flooding hit Perry County hard enough to force water rescues, and a flash flood emergency was declared for Crooksville. CNN reported that around 200 people were forced to leave or could not reach their homes in Perry County. Our archive recorded 173 flash flood warnings covering Ohio across the month.

By August 15, the City of Indianapolis had issued its own emergency message — labeled INDY FLOOD 2026 — telling residents in the Rocky Ripple neighborhood to act urgently. The following day, a second city message reported that AES Indiana was surveying the Ravenswood neighborhood to find places where power might need to be shut off because of standing water. The flood had moved from a weather event into an infrastructure problem, and the warnings shifted with it.

Western fires burned through August from the first days to the last

Fire warnings came earliest and most intensely in the Pacific Northwest. The peak days for wildfire alerts were August 2 and 3, when 43 and 45 fire warnings went out respectively. Washington led all states with 103 wildfire alerts across the month, followed by Oregon with 90, California with 81, Wyoming with 77 and Idaho with 70.

NPR reported that close to a dozen active wildfires were burning in Utah by early August, that fires had burned more than 300,000 acres in that state, and that at least 60,000 people were evacuated in the Spokane, Washington, area. Our archive recorded 103 wildfire alerts covering Washington in this period. Evacuation orders from local agencies in Washington peaked on August 1 and 2, with 18 orders each day — the highest single-day totals for evacuation orders all month.

The named local alerts tell the sequence on the ground. On August 6, Granite County Disaster and Emergency Services in Montana issued a red evacuation order for the Frog Pond Basin area. On August 8, Washoe County Emergency Management in Nevada told Cold Springs residents to evacuate immediately as a wildland fire crossed from California. On August 9, the Granite County Sheriff issued a yellow evacuation warning for residents south of the Montana Highway 38 junction with Moose Lake Road. On August 10, Fremont County in Wyoming ordered all Twin Creek Drainage Area residents to go — evacuate now.

A separate fire near Reno, Nevada, produced the month's most specific injury count. CGTN reported that a fast-moving wildfire on August 24 injured six people — three civilians and three first responders. ABC News reported that about 23,000 people were ordered to evacuate and about 40,000 additional people were warned they might need to leave. Late in the month, a wildfire near Fort Worth, Texas, expanded to 80,000 acres and triggered evacuations in two counties, according to ABC News.

A heat dome settled over the South and Southwest

Extreme heat warnings and heat advisories reached more counties in August than any other single hazard — 2,055 counties across the month, compared with 932 for flash flooding. The warnings were quieter than a tornado alarm and easier to ignore, but the geography was vast.

Texas led with 355 heat alerts, followed by California with 253, Arkansas with 203, Oklahoma with 194 and Mississippi with 144. The peak days were August 12, 13 and 14, when between 102 and 113 heat alerts went out each day — the same window when Midwest flooding was at its worst, meaning large parts of the country were under simultaneous and different threats.

The Guardian reported that dangerous, record-breaking heat was expected to affect more than 45 million people across the southwestern United States through the end of August and into early September. The alert archive does not measure how many people were harmed; the documented outcomes research found no confirmed death toll for this event, and none is reported here.

A tornado outbreak crossed the Midwest on August 11

August 11 produced 137 tornado warnings — the highest single-day total for that hazard all month and part of the reason that day became the busiest of the entire month across all alert types. The outbreak was concentrated in Illinois, which led all states with 101 tornado warnings for August, and Ohio with 96. Kentucky, Iowa and Indiana followed.

The 608 tornado warnings for the month covered 285 counties. A second, smaller outbreak followed on August 20, when 89 tornado warnings went out — the second-highest single day for that hazard. The archive does not show confirmed tornado touchdowns or injuries from these events; the documented outcomes research did not return a verified toll for the August 11 outbreak, and none is reported here.

The timing mattered. August 11 was also the day the Midwest flood complex was intensifying, and the same storm system that produced tornadoes in Illinois and Ohio was driving the rain that would peak two days later in Indiana. The two hazards shared a cause and overlapped in the warning record.

County agencies named specific places and told people to move

The most direct warnings of the month came not from weather forecasters but from county sheriffs, emergency management offices and city agencies that named a neighborhood, a road junction or a subdivision and told the people there what to do.

In Wyoming, Fremont County issued at least three named emergency messages across August 9, 10 and 11: a wildfire threat on Highway 28 south of Lander, an immediate evacuation order for all Twin Creek Drainage Area residents, and an evacuation notice for the Crooked Creek subdivision near Fort Washakie. In New Mexico, AlertSantaFe placed the communities of Cundiyo and Cerro Pinon in ready status on August 8 as the Frijoles Fire grew, and New Mexico's Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management followed on August 11 by placing Cordova in ready status as activity on the same fire increased.

On August 9, Siskiyou County in California issued a missing person alert for Joyce Hammon of Happy Camp, described as possibly en route to Gold Hill, Oregon, in a silver 2017 Ford Edge. That alert is one of 55 missing and endangered person alerts sent across 51 counties in August. The month's busiest day for that category was August 30, when five such alerts went out — the same day NBC News reported that more than a dozen people were feared missing after flash floods swept through the Grand Canyon in Arizona.

Washoe County, Nevada, was the most active single local sender in the fire corridor, with 24 events across the month. The county's August 8 message — telling Cold Springs residents that a wildland fire was moving in from California and that they should evacuate to the library — is the kind of alert that arrives on a phone with a specific address and a specific instruction, and that is what local emergency management is built to send.

What this data cannot tell you

The archive records when a warning was sent, where it was sent, and what people were told to do. It does not record whether anyone acted on it, whether they had a way to leave, or whether the warning arrived before the water did.

The lead time figure in this archive is not a measure of how much notice people received before a hazard arrived. It measures the gap between when an alert was sent and when it was set to take effect — and for most products those two moments are the same by design, so the figure does not describe forecast warning time in the way that phrase is commonly understood.

Evacuation and shelter counts are response counts. They record what people were instructed to do. Where an alert did not name a hazard, the record shows the instruction without a cause. The 8,091 shelter events whose hazard was unstated in the alert text are counted but cannot be assigned to a storm, a fire or anything else.

Deaths, injuries, acres burned and people displaced in this report come from CNN, NPR, ABC News, CGTN, NBC News and The Guardian, as cited in each paragraph. The alert archive itself measures delivery, not outcomes, and is never the source for a toll. Where the documented outcomes research found no verified figure, this report makes no claim.

How BePrepared watches this, all year

This report exists because we already watch the whole country. Every couple of minutes, around the clock, we read the emergency alerts going out across all fifty states and territories, and we keep them. A month of that record is what you have just read.

The national picture is the part most people never see. What matters to you is much smaller: which of these warnings would have reached your street, and what the risks around you look like on an ordinary day.

That is what BePrepared is for. Put in your ZIP code and you get the picture for where you live — the flood, fire and storm history around you, the dams and facilities nearby, and a plan for your household rather than a general one. With a free account you can keep a watchlist of the places you care about, like your home, your parents' address, and your kids' school, and set what you want to hear about.