Eight Red Flag Warnings are in effect Friday across Arizona, Colorado, Minnesota, New Mexico, and Texas, as the critical fire weather pattern that gripped the Southwest and Rockies through Thursday has reorganized — dropping alerts in Montana and North Dakota while extending dangerous conditions northward into Minnesota’s Twin Cities metro area.
The Minnesota warnings cover a dense cluster of counties in the greater Minneapolis-Saint Paul region, including Hennepin, Ramsey, Anoka, Washington, Dakota, Carver, Scott, and Wright. The National Weather Service issued the alerts due to a combination of low relative humidity and elevated wind speeds capable of driving rapid fire spread — the same core ingredients fueling warnings more than 1,500 miles to the southwest.
In Arizona and New Mexico, conditions remain among the most intense in the country. The National Weather Service warns of southwest winds of 20 to 30 mph with gusts reaching 40 to 50 mph across the Navajo Nation, the Little Colorado River Valley, and the Northeast Plateaus and Mesas. Relative humidity in those zones is forecast to drop to between 12 and 16 percent — well below critical thresholds. The agency warns that fires in the region “will have the potential to exhibit extreme fire behavior” and could undergo rapid spread and growth. Warnings across Arizona’s Coconino, Navajo, and Apache counties, as well as the Chinle Valley and Chuska Mountains, run from late morning through 8 p.m. MST.
Colorado’s warnings cover the Southwest Lower Forecast Area, Paradox Valley, and the North Fork region, with timing from 1 p.m. to 8 p.m. MDT. Portions of adjacent southeastern Utah — including the Book Cliffs, Colorado River Basin, and Eastern Uintah Basin — are included under the same alert.
Texas carries the most geographically sprawling coverage. Warnings extend from the Houston weather metro — including inland and coastal Harris, Brazoria, and Galveston counties, down to the Bolivar Peninsula — northward through the Dallas-Fort Worth corridor, where Tarrant, Dallas, Denton, Collin, and more than a half-dozen surrounding counties are included. A separate warning covers the San Antonio-Austin region, encompassing Bexar, Travis, Hays, Williamson, Comal, Guadalupe, Caldwell, Bastrop, and several Hill Country counties.
The National Weather Service is urging residents and officials in all warned areas to avoid open flames, keep vehicles off dry grass, properly dispose of cigarette butts, and avoid spark-producing power equipment. Fire crews in the field have been notified.
Friday’s total of eight alerts represents a decline from the ten warnings active Thursday, but the geographic spread — now reaching from Arizona’s high desert to the Minnesota suburbs — underscores that the elevated fire danger is not retreating so much as redistributing across a multi-region pattern.