In 2025, fire departments serving Melbourne responded to 13 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 77% of all calls.
May peaks. Feb dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
59 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2024.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 8 | — | |
| 2022 | 14 | +75.0% | |
| 2023* | 7 | — | |
| 2024 | 17 | — | |
| 2025 | 13 | -23.5% |
* Well below Melbourne'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 Melbourne departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 12 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 | 11 | 91.7% | |
| 2 | Other | 1 | 8.3% |
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 Melbourne mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Undetermined | 12 | 100.0% |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Melbourne sits above the national average for incidents per resident.
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 5,964 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | Debris and open burning | 1,000 | 44.6 mi | |
| 2017 | Equipment and vehicle use | 700 | 19.7 mi | |
| 2018 | Debris and open burning | 402 | 42.3 mi | |
| 2004 | Debris and open burning | 400 | 21.2 mi | |
| 2006 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 360 | 47.6 mi | |
| 2018 | Debris and open burning | 316 | 47.4 mi | |
| 2011 | Debris and open burning | 250 | 39.4 mi | |
| 2016 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 250 | 35.3 mi | |
| 2003 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 200 | 23.4 mi | |
| 2004 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 175 | 23.1 mi | |
| 2018 | Arson/incendiarism | 175 | 25.9 mi | |
| 2010 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 160 | 32.1 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 | 50162 | 59 |
Six Iowa cities with population within ±25% of Melbourne. 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.