In 2025, fire departments serving Brownville responded to 34 fire and hazmat incidents . Here's the full picture.
Unauthorized burning lead by count. Building fires lead by dollars. Together the top five categories make up about 65% of all calls.
Aug peaks. Mar dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
176 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2024. $30K cumulative property loss.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021* | 3 | — | |
| 2022 | 29 | — | |
| 2023 | 41 | +41.4% | |
| 2024 | 69 | +68.3% | |
| 2025 | 34 | -50.7% |
* Well below Brownville'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 2 building fires Brownville departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 10 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 | 3 | 30.0% | |
| 2 | Undetermined | 3 | 30.0% | |
| 3 | Engine area, running gear, wheel area | 2 | 20.0% | |
| 4 | Cooking area, kitchen | 1 | 10.0% | |
| 5 | Cargo/trunk area - all vehicles | 1 | 10.0% |
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 Brownville mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Undetermined | 4 | 40.0% | |
| 2 | Radiated, conducted heat from operating equipment | 1 | 10.0% | |
| 3 | Heat, spark from friction | 1 | 10.0% | |
| 4 | Cigarette | 1 | 10.0% | |
| 5 | Other static discharge | 1 | 10.0% | |
| 6 | Radiated heat from another fire | 1 | 10.0% | |
| 7 | Flying brand, ember, spark | 1 | 10.0% |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Brownville sits above the national average for incidents per resident.
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 2,032 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1992 | Smoking | 856 | 45.4 mi | |
| 1992 | Debris and open burning | 125 | 49.5 mi | |
| 2001 | Railroad operations and maintenance | 97 | 45.1 mi | |
| 2001 | Railroad operations and maintenance | 82 | 46.1 mi | |
| 1994 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 75 | 28.2 mi | |
| 2002 | Arson/incendiarism | 67 | 21.8 mi | |
| 2016 | Debris and open burning | 61 | 10.8 mi | |
| 2001 | Railroad operations and maintenance | 60 | 37.0 mi | |
| 2015 | Other causes | 50 | 30.4 mi | |
| 2020 | Other causes | 45 | 33.2 mi | |
| 1992 | Debris and open burning | 42 | 46.0 mi | |
| 2018 | Natural | 41 | 42.7 mi |
Top 3 ZIP codes by NFIRS incident count across 2021–2025. Each ZIP has its own fire profile — dive in for neighborhood-level context.
Six Maine cities with population within ±25% of Brownville. Useful comparison targets — same state, similar size, different fire profile.
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.