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In 2025, fire departments serving Cornelius responded to 95 fire and hazmat incidents — from cooking fires to gas leaks to a single $20K building blaze. 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 50% of all calls.
Aug peaks. Feb dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
442 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2021. $423K cumulative property loss.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 119 | — | |
| 2022 | 115 | -3.4% | |
| 2023 | 68 | -40.9% | |
| 2024* | 45 | — | |
| 2025 | 95 | — |
* Well below Cornelius'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 10 building fires Cornelius departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 124 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 | 18 | 14.5% | |
| 2 | Highway, parking lot, street: on or near | 16 | 12.9% | |
| 3 | Undetermined | 15 | 12.1% | |
| 4 | Cooking area, kitchen | 12 | 9.7% | |
| 5 | Outside area, other | 9 | 7.3% | |
| 6 | Other | 5 | 4.0% | |
| 7 | Vehicle storage area; garage, carport | 5 | 4.0% | |
| 8 | Engine area, running gear, wheel area | 5 | 4.0% | |
| 9 | Storage room, area, tank, or bin | 4 | 3.2% | |
| 10 | Chute/container - trash, rubbish, waste | 3 | 2.4% | |
| 11 | All other areas | 32 | 25.8% |
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 Cornelius mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Undetermined | 44 | 35.5% | |
| 2 | Cigarette | 14 | 11.3% | |
| 3 | Hot ember or ash | 10 | 8.1% | |
| 4 | Cigarette lighter | 10 | 8.1% | |
| 5 | Radiated, conducted heat from operating equipment | 8 | 6.5% | |
| 6 | Heat source: other | 6 | 4.8% | |
| 7 | Heat from powered equipment, other | 5 | 4.0% | |
| 8 | Arcing | 5 | 4.0% | |
| 9 | Molten, hot material | 4 | 3.2% | |
| 10 | Hot or smoldering object, other | 3 | 2.4% | |
| 11 | All other sources | 15 | 12.1% |
Largest single-incident property losses reported by Cornelius departments in 2025. These 8 fires alone account for 93% of the city's annual total.
| # | Property loss | Type | Severity | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $20,000 | Mobile property (vehicle) fire, other | Significant | Investigated |
| 2 | $16,000 | Passenger vehicle fire | Significant | Investigated |
| 3 | $15,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 4 | $10,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 5 | $5,000 | Passenger vehicle fire | Significant | Investigated |
| 6 | $5,000 | Cultivated grain or crop fire | Significant | Investigated |
| 7 | $3,000 | Brush, or brush and grass mixture fire | Significant | Investigated |
| 8 | $3,000 | Passenger vehicle fire | Significant | Investigated |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Cornelius sits below the national average for incidents per resident.
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 21,281 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | Natural | 7,500 | 20.5 mi | |
| 2014 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 5,508 | 47.8 mi | |
| 2020 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2,584 | 32.8 mi | |
| 2020 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1,508 | 34.8 mi | |
| 2020 | Power generation/transmission/distribution | 532 | 38.5 mi | |
| 2020 | Power generation/transmission/distribution | 497 | 38.4 mi | |
| 2017 | Debris and open burning | 303 | 48.5 mi | |
| 2020 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 301 | 38.7 mi | |
| 2014 | Debris and open burning | 254 | 47.0 mi | |
| 2017 | Debris and open burning | 250 | 44.2 mi | |
| 2015 | Recreation and ceremony | 215 | 30.3 mi | |
| 2014 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 211 | 10.7 mi |
Top 6 ZIP codes by NFIRS incident count across 2021–2025. Each ZIP has its own fire profile — dive in for neighborhood-level context.
Six Oregon cities with population within ±25% of Cornelius. 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.