In 2025, fire departments serving Americus responded to 11 fire and hazmat incidents . Here's the full picture.
Brush, or brush and grass mixture fire lead by count. Building fires lead by dollars. Together the top five categories make up about 91% of all calls.
Mar peaks. Jan dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
65 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2021. $5K cumulative property loss.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 25 | — | |
| 2022 | 12 | -52.0% | |
| 2023 | 11 | -8.3% | |
| 2024* | 6 | — | |
| 2025 | 11 | — |
* Well below Americus's usual volume. That almost always means one or more departments didn't submit a full year to NFIRS, not that fires dropped, so no year-over-year change is shown for it.
For the 1 building fires Americus departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 6 building fires investigators classified across 2021–2025. The room or location where ignition occurred — kitchens, bedrooms, exterior, vehicle areas — tells you where to focus prevention.
| # | Area of origin | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Open area - outside; included are farmland, field | 4 | 66.7% | |
| 2 | Chute/container - trash, rubbish, waste | 1 | 16.7% | |
| 3 | Wildland, woods | 1 | 16.7% |
NFIRS Heat Source (HEAT_SOURC) — the physical thing that started it. Spark or ember from operating equipment, an open flame, smoking materials, or hot embers from a fireplace are the leading culprits nationwide. Here's the Americus mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Radiated, conducted heat from operating equipment | 1 | 16.7% | |
| 2 | Hot ember or ash | 1 | 16.7% | |
| 3 | Cigarette lighter | 1 | 16.7% | |
| 4 | Flame/torch used for lighting | 1 | 16.7% | |
| 5 | Radiated heat from another fire | 1 | 16.7% | |
| 6 | Conducted heat from another fire | 1 | 16.7% |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Americus sits above the national average for incidents per resident.
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 160,659 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2002 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 30,000 | 29.7 mi | |
| 1996 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 23,000 | 41.2 mi | |
| 1996 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 12,000 | 42.1 mi | |
| 1996 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 10,000 | 35.3 mi | |
| 2012 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 8,000 | 41.1 mi | |
| 2002 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 5,500 | 48.6 mi | |
| 2020 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 5,500 | 35.5 mi | |
| 1994 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 5,000 | 16.2 mi | |
| 2011 | Debris and open burning | 5,000 | 12.7 mi | |
| 2016 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 5,000 | 19.1 mi | |
| 2016 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 5,000 | 43.0 mi | |
| 2014 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 4,500 | 16.6 mi |
Top 4 ZIP codes by NFIRS incident count across 2021–2025. Each ZIP has its own fire profile — dive in for neighborhood-level context.
Six Kansas cities with population within ±25% of Americus. Useful comparison targets — same state, similar size, different fire profile.
1 departments report to NFIRS for incidents in Americus.
A 30-minute weekend can cut your home's exposure substantially. These four checklists are a good starting point.
Numbers reflect incidents reported by participating fire departments to the National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) Public Data Release for calendar year 2025. NFIRS is voluntary — about 23,000 of roughly 30,000 US fire departments report — so totals are a strong indicator, not a complete census. Per-capita comparisons use 2023 ACS population estimates. Wildland fire data complements NFIRS with NIFC and USFS perimeters. Active-fire counts come from a dated NIFC snapshot, not a live feed.