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Cause profile

Railroad operations
fires

37,292 wildfire and 0 structure-fire incidents attributed to railroad operations across the US in 1992–2020. They scorched 944,560 acres.

29 years tracked $0 property loss 50 states · 50 counties
Total incidents
37,292
1992–2020
Property loss
$0
NFIRS structure fires only
Civilian casualties
0 / 0
deaths / injuries
Avg per year
1,286
incidents / yr
01 Long-term trend

How railroad operations fires have changed

Year-by-year incidents from 1992–2020.

199220062020
02 Top states

Where railroad operations fires concentrate

50 states ranked by cumulative railroad operations incidents.

FL
15,248 · 299,817 ac GA
3,225 · 14,598 ac MN
1,407 · 11,785 ac TX
1,300 · 35,732 ac WI
1,214 · 2,725 ac AL
1,171 · 10,725 ac NC
1,123 · 5,207 ac LA
1,004 · 9,230 ac NJ
964 · 1,319 ac MT
814 · 29,762 ac CA
773 · 75,738 ac ME
636 · 828 ac SC
558 · 3,563 ac WY
555 · 54,406 ac PA
490 · 3,740 ac VA
462 · 14,453 ac KY
434 · 7,613 ac AZ
409 · 17,047 ac AR
373 · 2,575 ac MS
368 · 4,564 ac NE
355 · 5,058 ac OK
348 · 8,410 ac OR
346 · 17,091 ac ID
344 · 18,369 ac WV
341 · 4,640 ac
03 Top counties

Railroad operations hotspots by county

Top 50 counties by cumulative railroad operations incidents.

#CountyStateIncidentsAcres
1 Polk County FL 982 36,471 ac
2 Santa Rosa County FL 663 3,829 ac
3 Lee County FL 602 9,773 ac
4 Collier County FL 584 17,909 ac
5 Marion County FL 581 3,805 ac
6 Suwannee County FL 533 3,139 ac
7 Highlands County FL 494 6,829 ac
8 St. Louis County MN 484 4,370 ac
9 Levy County FL 472 4,369 ac
10 Miami-Dade County FL 471 25,205 ac
11 Alachua County FL 451 9,865 ac
12 Columbia County FL 436 1,683 ac
13 Walton County FL 391 1,935 ac
14 Lake County FL 389 6,167 ac
15 Clay County FL 352 3,634 ac
16 Escambia County FL 294 2,474 ac
17 Jackson County FL 289 1,235 ac
18 Hendry County FL 274 6,639 ac
19 Citrus County FL 267 2,291 ac
20 Okaloosa County FL 243 1,043 ac
21 Bay County FL 242 2,297 ac
22 Okeechobee County FL 241 20,534 ac
23 Hillsborough County FL 239 3,894 ac
24 Orange County FL 230 3,637 ac
25 Ware County GA 225 2,261 ac
26 Putnam County FL 222 1,316 ac
27 Palm Beach County FL 221 23,473 ac
28 Hernando County FL 212 1,096 ac
29 Volusia County FL 210 5,755 ac
30 Gilchrist County FL 209 1,753 ac
31 Holmes County FL 208 1,122 ac
32 Gadsden County FL 207 1,406 ac
33 Pasco County FL 206 2,577 ac
34 Hardee County FL 194 1,286 ac
35 Camden County NJ 194 304 ac
36 Washington County FL 176 1,214 ac
37 Bradford County FL 173 848 ac
38 Warren County NJ 173 67 ac
39 Hamilton County FL 166 865 ac
40 Jefferson County FL 160 757 ac
41 Carlton County MN 160 190 ac
42 Taylor County FL 159 860 ac
43 Early County GA 159 120 ac
44 Nassau County FL 157 935 ac
45 Beauregard Parish LA 156 2,534 ac
46 Portage County WI 154 307 ac
47 Penobscot County ME 153 493 ac
48 DeSoto County FL 151 1,011 ac
49 Madison County FL 150 680 ac
50 Hunterdon County NJ 150 382 ac

About this data

FireVerge's cause profiles use the 13 ignition categories defined by the FPA FOD (Fire Program Analysis Fire-Occurrence Database, 6th edition: 2.3M wildfire records, 1992–2020). NFIRS CAUSE_IGN codes from 11.4M structure incidents (2021–2025) are cross-classified into the same taxonomy where they align cleanly. Wildfires (FOD) and structure fires (NFIRS) are tracked as separate sources because their data captures very different things — FOD records every wildfire ignition in the US, while NFIRS counts emergency-department responses.