THE EMN DAILY NEWS | Monday, 21 September 2026
Tropical Storm Fay peaked at 70 miles per hour overnight, just short of hurricane strength, and is now weakening about 405 miles southwest of the Azores with no hazards to land. The Central Pacific Hurricane Center gives the remnants of Tropical Depression Fifteen-E a 60 percent chance of becoming a depression within seven days, possibly south or southeast of Hawaii later this week. National Preparedness Level 3 holds with 96 incidents and 10,886 personnel, down 437 in a day, and uncontained large fires fell from 46 to 34. The Southern Area carries more incidents than any other region, 36, as hot and dry conditions persist across the Lower Mississippi Valley. Boil water advisories are in effect in three states, including all of Monroe County, Indiana, and most of Kalamazoo, Michigan. The EMN NEWS Daily Brief is your concise daily update on national and state-by-state emergency management news.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Hawai’i watch: As of Sunday’s outlook, the Central Pacific Hurricane Center puts formation chances for the remnants of Tropical Depression Fifteen-E near zero through 48 hours and at 60 percent over seven days as the system moves west to west-southwest. A depression could form south or southeast of the Hawaiian Islands once conditions improve. No watches are posted, keeping the first half of the week as the preparation window.
Atlantic: Fay reached 70 miles per hour at the 0300 UTC advisory, then weakened to 65 miles per hour and 997 millibars by 0900 UTC, drifting south-southeast at 2 miles per hour. The National Hurricane Center expects Fay to become post-tropical in a day or two and to dissipate by Saturday. No hazards affect land.
Wildfire posture: Preparedness Level 3 holds with 96 incidents, 34 uncontained large fires, 1,999,381 acres and 10,886 personnel, a drop of 437, per the Sunday situation report. Initial attack was light, with 60 fires and no new large incidents, and eight complex incident management teams remain committed. Year to date, the country is at 56,525 fires and 8,541,715 acres, 125 percent and 146 percent of the ten-year averages.
Southern Area: Thirty-six incidents and 1,038 personnel, down 157, after 26 new fires. Dry River near Sonora, Texas, is 8,939 acres and 85 percent contained, with energy infrastructure threatened. Gracemont near Binger, Oklahoma, has destroyed 31 structures on 2,665 acres and is 60 percent contained. Relative humidity of 20 to 30 percent persists across the Lower Mississippi Valley.
Northwest: Fourteen uncontained large fires, 5,050 personnel and five complex teams. The situation report no longer lists evacuations on Three Queens or Goat; Three Queens, near Snoqualmie Pass, is 9,566 acres and 23 percent contained, with numerous residences and critical infrastructure threatened. Border 2 in North Cascades National Park grew 345 acres, and Sisi near Stehekin is 15 percent contained, with residences and energy infrastructure threatened.
California: The dome in Yosemite National Park grew 198 acres to 2,384 and remains 15 percent contained, with 525 personnel. Command on Timber was set to pass Sunday from Southwest Team 1 to California Team 6, with the fire at 25,435 acres, 59 percent contained and $169.9 million in costs. Floriston near Truckee moved from 25 to 45 percent contained and released 100 personnel.
Rocky Mountains: Moonshine near Wheatland, Wyoming, is 7,325 acres and 61 percent contained, with residences threatened. Swiss Roll near Pagosa Springs, Colorado, is 36 percent contained, with energy infrastructure threatened. Rain fell Saturday over Davis Coulee and Sand Creek in Montana, where Sand Creek is 58 percent contained.
Water systems: City of Bloomington Utilities issued a precautionary boil water advisory for all of Monroe County, Indiana, early Sunday after turbidity exceeded the permitted maximum, running through 3 p.m. today. Kalamazoo, Michigan, expects to lift its advisory today if Monday samples come back clean; it covers 19 of 22 city neighborhoods and Portage north of Interstate 94. Salemburg, North Carolina, restored service Saturday evening, but its advisory remains in effect.
Federal assistance: SBA physical damage deadlines for the September 1 public assistance declarations close November 1 in Colorado and South Dakota and November 2 in Missouri and Texas. Economic injury applications stay open to June 1, 2027.
Cyber: The most recent Known Exploited Vulnerabilities additions, posted this morning, are Friday’s three Linux kernel entries, remediated by federal civilian agencies under Binding Operational Directive 26-04.
Fire weather: Wet thunderstorms bring up to about an inch of rain to eastern Montana, Wyoming and the High Plains. Relative humidity drops to 7 to 18 percent across Nevada, the Mojave Desert and the Central Valley, with light winds; gusts of 25 to 30 miles per hour are likely along the Front Range and eastern Sierra.
Tropical weather
Tropical Storm Fay Public Advisory Number 7: NHC, 0300 UTC Sept 21
Tropical Storm Fay Public Advisory Number 8: NHC, 0900 UTC Sept 21
Tropical Storm Fay Forecast/Advisory Number 8: NHC, 0900 UTC Sept 21
Central Pacific Tropical Weather Outlook: CPHC, 200 AM HST Sept 20, formation chance 60 percent in 7 days
Central Pacific Tropical Weather Outlook: CPHC, 800 AM HST Sept 20
Wildfire, national
NICC Incident Management Situation Report: Sunday, Sept 20, 2026, 0730 MDT
NICC Predictive Services discussion: Sept 20
CISA
Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog: CVE-2025-39682, CVE-2025-39964 and CVE-2026-53266 added Sept 18; no later additions located in this sweep
Binding Operational Directive 26-04: Prioritizing Security Updates Based on Risk
Federal assistance
Federal Register: SBA notice, Texas, FEMA-4935-DR, amended incident period July 12 through August 4, published Sept 14
Federal Register: SBA notices for Colorado FEMA-4944-DR, South Dakota FEMA-4938-DR and Missouri FEMA-4939-DR, published Sept 9 to Sept 14
Texas and Oklahoma
NICC situation report: Dry River, Hydra, Gracemont and Calvary Creek, Sept 20
Washington and Oregon
NICC situation report: Three Queens, Goat, Sisi, Border 2 and Little Giant, Sept 20
California
NICC situation report: Dome, Timber, Plaskett and Floriston, Sept 20
Wyoming, Colorado and Montana
NICC situation report: Moonshine, Swiss Roll, Davis Coulee and Sand Creek, Sept 20
Indiana
The Bloomingtonian: City of Bloomington Utilities countywide boil water advisory, Sept 20
Indiana Public Media: precautionary boil advisory for Monroe County, Sept 20
Michigan
The Detroit News: Kalamazoo boil water advisory could end Monday, Sept. 20
North Carolina
WRAL: Salemburg boil water advisory remains in effect, updated Sept. 20
Links that need a note:
* Advisory 8 has no NHC link. Both Fay advisory 8 products came through news-site mirrors of the NHC bulletin text, not nhc.noaa.gov, so I’ve marked them.
* Two links are live pages. The situation report and one Central Pacific outlook link are overwritten with each new issue. After today they will show newer content than what the brief cites.
* The CISA links are lost. I pulled the September 18 CISA alerts yesterday, but those links didn’t carry over. A search just now couldn’t recover them.
* Three Federal Register links are lost. The same happened to the Colorado, South Dakota and Missouri notices. I’ve marked all of these as missing rather than rebuild addresses from memory.
Tropical weather
* Fay Public Advisory 7, NHC: https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/refresh/MIATCPAT1+shtml/200841.shtml
* Fay Public Advisory 8, NHC text via Index-Journal mirror: https://www.indexjournal.com/news/hurricane/tropical-storm-fay-public-advisory-number-8/article_9a48d4f1-d16c-5f75-923d-febd44f298cf.html
* Fay Forecast/Advisory 8, NHC text via Cape Weather mirror: https://capeweather.com/tropical-storm-fay-forecast-advisory-number-8/
* Central Pacific outlook, 200 AM HST Sept 20 (live page, overwritten): https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/HFOTWOCP.shtml
* Central Pacific outlook, 800 AM HST Sept 20: https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/mobile/text/refresh/HFOTWOCP+html/171133_HFOTWOCP.html
Wildfire, national (covers every NICC line in the state sections too)
* Situation report and Predictive Services discussion (live PDF, overwritten daily): https://www.nifc.gov/nicc-files/sitreprt.pdf
* Archive page for past situation reports: https://www.nifc.gov/nicc/incident-information/imsr
CISA
* KEV additions, Sept 18: link not recovered
* Binding Operational Directive 26-04: link not recovered
Federal assistance
* Texas, FEMA-4935-DR amendment, published Sept 14: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/09/14/2026-18756/presidential-declaration-amendment-of-a-major-disaster-for-public-assistance-only-for-the-state-of
* Texas, FEMA-4935-DR original notice, published Sept 9: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/09/09/2026-18354/presidential-declaration-of-a-major-disaster-for-public-assistance-only-for-the-state-of-texas
* Colorado, South Dakota and Missouri notices: links not recovered
Indiana
* The Bloomingtonian: https://bloomingtonian.com/2026/09/20/bloomington-utilities-issues-countywide-boil-water-advisory-after-turbidity-spike/
* Indiana Public Media: https://www.ipm.org/news/2026-09-20/precautionary-boil-advisory-issued-for-monroe-county
Michigan
* The Detroit News: https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2026/09/20/kalamazoo-boil-water-advisory-could-end-monday/91781476007/
North Carolina
* WRAL: https://www.wral.com/news/local/boil-water-advisory-salemburg-september-2026/
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