More smoky skies in South Dakota this summer thanks to wildfires burning in North America. The smoke filters into South Dakota thanks to air movement and weather patterns.

But South Dakota isn't a stranger to wildfires burning within its borders.

South Dakota’s Wildfire History Since 2000

Since the year 2000, South Dakota has experienced approximately 12 major fires. The largest single wildfire in South Dakota history, so far, was the Jasper Fire in August and September 2000. It burned 83,508 acres in the southern Black Hills and caused around $42 million in damage.

The Black Hills of South Dakota (Canva)

Most of South Dakota's wildfire danger is in the far western part of the state in the Black Hills. The mini-mountain range is covered in trees; it's a proper forest. And those mountain forests can get really dry and are susceptible to lots of thunderstorms and their blaze-sparking lightning.

The entire state is susceptible to wildfires. A prairie fire is not out of the question anywhere in the state. The same dry conditions that make the forest a tinderbox do the same to the flatland.

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Custer State Park (Image: Canva)

Counties With the Highest Wildfire Risk

The USDA Forest Service looked into the data to find the counties in South Dakota most susceptible to wildfires. As expected, most of the danger is in the Black Hills counties in the west and the prairie rangeland in the southwestern areas.

The wildfire threat is biggest in the Black Hills counties of South Dakota (Pennington, Custer, Meade, Fall River, Lawrence). This area includes the cities of Rapid City, Custer, Spearfish, Sturgis, and Deadwood. Nearly 200,000 people live in these counties.

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Oglala, Bennett, and Jackson counties, southeast of the Black Hills and Harding County in the far northwestern corner of South Dakota, face an increased wildfire danger with their miles of prairie and grasslands.

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Much of the range land west of the Missouri River has a higher risk of fire. East of the river, the risk is lower, but not completely gone, especially if it gets dry enough.

Oglala County, South Dakota (Google Maps)

Piles of Burnt Cars and Leveled Homes: Photos Show California Four Months After Devastating Wildfires

According to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, the two fires that caused the most damage were the Palisades Fire, which covered more than 23,000 acres, and the Eaton Fire, which spread across 14,000 acres west of Los Angeles.