In 2025, fire departments serving Bainbridge responded to 200 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 64% of all calls.
Sep peaks. Aug dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
1,634 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2022. $687K cumulative property loss. 1 civilian deaths.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 254 | — | |
| 2022 | 477 | +87.8% | |
| 2023 | 398 | -16.6% | |
| 2024 | 305 | -23.4% | |
| 2025 | 200 | -34.4% |
For the 22 building fires Bainbridge departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 458 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 | Undetermined | 82 | 17.9% | |
| 2 | Engine area, running gear, wheel area | 70 | 15.3% | |
| 3 | Open area - outside; included are farmland, field | 57 | 12.4% | |
| 4 | Cooking area, kitchen | 45 | 9.8% | |
| 5 | Outside area, other | 20 | 4.4% | |
| 6 | Highway, parking lot, street: on or near | 17 | 3.7% | |
| 7 | Wildland, woods | 17 | 3.7% | |
| 8 | Bedroom - < 5 persons; included are jail or prison | 14 | 3.1% | |
| 9 | Wall surface: exterior | 14 | 3.1% | |
| 10 | Chute/container - trash, rubbish, waste | 9 | 2.0% | |
| 11 | All other areas | 113 | 24.7% |
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 Bainbridge mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Undetermined | 218 | 47.6% | |
| 2 | Radiated, conducted heat from operating equipment | 49 | 10.7% | |
| 3 | Arcing | 45 | 9.8% | |
| 4 | Hot ember or ash | 28 | 6.1% | |
| 5 | Heat from direct flame, convection currents | 21 | 4.6% | |
| 6 | Spark, ember or flame from operating equipment | 15 | 3.3% | |
| 7 | Cigarette lighter | 10 | 2.2% | |
| 8 | Match | 8 | 1.7% | |
| 9 | Flying brand, ember, spark | 8 | 1.7% | |
| 10 | Heat, spark from friction | 7 | 1.5% | |
| 11 | All other sources | 49 | 10.7% |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Bainbridge sits above the national average for incidents per resident.
8 fire-related casualties recorded in NFIRS Module 11 across the 2021–2025 window. Age, gender, and severity are coarse-binned — no individual identification possible.
| Age | Count | |
|---|---|---|
| 0-9 | 0 | |
| 10-19 | 2 | |
| 20-29 | 1 | |
| 30-39 | 0 | |
| 40-49 | 1 | |
| 50-59 | 2 | |
| 60-69 | 2 | |
| 70-79 | 0 | |
| 80+ | 0 |
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 21,385 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1999 | Debris and open burning | 6,675 | 44.9 mi | |
| 2019 | Natural | 2,246 | 36.9 mi | |
| 2001 | Arson/incendiarism | 1,518 | 43.0 mi | |
| 2012 | Natural | 1,356 | 40.4 mi | |
| 2011 | Debris and open burning | 800 | 47.2 mi | |
| 2012 | Debris and open burning | 793 | 37.8 mi | |
| 2011 | Natural | 630 | 35.7 mi | |
| 2011 | Natural | 602 | 41.2 mi | |
| 2002 | Debris and open burning | 563 | 22.4 mi | |
| 2004 | Arson/incendiarism | 542 | 31.1 mi | |
| 2020 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 538 | 43.7 mi | |
| 2019 | Natural | 521 | 40.7 mi |
Top 5 ZIP codes by NFIRS incident count across 2021–2025. Each ZIP has its own fire profile — dive in for neighborhood-level context.
Six Georgia cities with population within ±25% of Bainbridge. Useful comparison targets — same state, similar size, different fire profile.
2 departments report to NFIRS for incidents in Bainbridge.
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.