Utah wildfire grows amid extreme winds, JetBlue reports drone strike at JFK

Extreme wind and bone-dry air kept the Cottonwood Fire racing through Fishlake National Forest near Beaver, Utah, where officials said the blaze was being driven by some of the worst fire weather in the state’s history. Gusts around 45 mph and single-digit humidity have made suppression efforts harder, and the fire has remained 0% contained as it spread to roughly 92,000 to 94,000 acres, making it the largest wildfire now burning in the United States.

The fire has already damaged the Eagle Point ski resort and destroyed summer cabins in sparsely populated Beaver County. Residents in Marysvale, Junction and Circleville were told to be ready to evacuate if conditions worsened, a warning that reflects how fast extreme fire weather can turn a remote forest blaze into a community-level emergency. In practical terms, the threat is no longer limited to the fire line. It has reached roads, homes, recreation sites and the evacuation plans that smaller towns depend on when flame, smoke and wind arrive together.

Utah has also restricted fireworks ahead of July Fourth because of the fire danger, a reminder that the state’s wildfire season is being stretched by heat, wind and drought into a longer, more volatile threat. Those conditions matter far beyond southern Utah. They shape whether insurers view mountain and forest communities as higher-risk properties, whether evacuation routes can stay open long enough to matter, and whether fire crews can count on weather breaks that used to help slow a blaze before it outran control lines.

Separately, a JetBlue Airways Airbus A321 reported hitting a drone while on final approach to John F. Kennedy International Airport around 7:15 a.m. EDT on Monday, June 29, 2026. The flight had departed Las Vegas and was about 3,000 feet up when the pilot reported the strike. The aircraft landed safely, and post-flight inspections found no damage or evidence of a collision. The Federal Aviation Administration opened an investigation, underscoring concern about unauthorized drones near New York airspace after a similar close call at Newark just days earlier.