In 2025, fire departments serving Laurens responded to 24 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 63% of all calls.
Apr peaks. Feb dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
29 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2025. $30K cumulative property loss.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 5 | — | |
| 2022* | 0 | — | |
| 2023* | 0 | — | |
| 2024* | 0 | — | |
| 2025 | 24 | — |
* Well below Laurens'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 3 building fires Laurens departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 1 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 | 1 | 100.0% |
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 Laurens mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Undetermined | 1 | 100.0% |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Laurens sits above the national average for incidents per resident.
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 3,831 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | Equipment and vehicle use | 700 | 23.0 mi | |
| 2009 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 401 | 30.5 mi | |
| 2015 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 226 | 38.6 mi | |
| 2011 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 220 | 49.8 mi | |
| 2011 | Debris and open burning | 215 | 44.7 mi | |
| 2011 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 200 | 47.7 mi | |
| 2019 | Debris and open burning | 200 | 32.8 mi | |
| 2020 | Debris and open burning | 200 | 31.6 mi | |
| 2010 | Debris and open burning | 155 | 38.9 mi | |
| 2012 | Smoking | 145 | 22.7 mi | |
| 2011 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 100 | 44.8 mi | |
| 2012 | Natural | 100 | 24.1 mi |
Top 1 ZIP codes by NFIRS incident count across 2021–2025. Each ZIP has its own fire profile — dive in for neighborhood-level context.
| # | ZIP | 5-yr incidents | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 50554 | 29 |
Six Iowa cities with population within ±25% of Laurens. 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.