In 2025, fire departments serving Petersburg responded to 405 fire and hazmat incidents — from cooking fires to gas leaks to a single $133K building blaze. Here's the full picture.
Gas leak (natural gas or LPG) lead by count. Building fires lead by dollars. Together the top five categories make up about 49% of all calls.
Jul peaks. May dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
1,430 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2024. $7.0M cumulative property loss. 1 civilian deaths.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021* | 134 | — | |
| 2022* | 90 | — | |
| 2023 | 283 | — | |
| 2024 | 518 | +83.0% | |
| 2025 | 405 | -21.8% |
* Well below Petersburg'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 50 building fires Petersburg departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 438 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 | 71 | 16.2% | |
| 2 | Engine area, running gear, wheel area | 57 | 13.0% | |
| 3 | Cooking area, kitchen | 45 | 10.3% | |
| 4 | Outside area, other | 36 | 8.2% | |
| 5 | Highway, parking lot, street: on or near | 24 | 5.5% | |
| 6 | Open area - outside; included are farmland, field | 23 | 5.3% | |
| 7 | Bedroom - < 5 persons; included are jail or prison | 22 | 5.0% | |
| 8 | Other | 15 | 3.4% | |
| 9 | Operator/passenger area of transportation equip. | 14 | 3.2% | |
| 10 | Common room, den, family room, living room, lounge | 11 | 2.5% | |
| 11 | All other areas | 120 | 27.4% |
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 Petersburg mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Undetermined | 220 | 50.2% | |
| 2 | Heat from powered equipment, other | 38 | 8.7% | |
| 3 | Arcing | 28 | 6.4% | |
| 4 | Hot or smoldering object, other | 25 | 5.7% | |
| 5 | Hot ember or ash | 18 | 4.1% | |
| 6 | Radiated, conducted heat from operating equipment | 17 | 3.9% | |
| 7 | Heat source: other | 14 | 3.2% | |
| 8 | Cigarette | 11 | 2.5% | |
| 9 | Radiated heat from another fire | 11 | 2.5% | |
| 10 | Cigarette lighter | 8 | 1.8% | |
| 11 | All other sources | 48 | 11.0% |
Largest single-incident property losses reported by Petersburg departments in 2025. These 8 fires alone account for 47% of the city's annual total.
| # | Property loss | Type | Severity | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $132,900 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 2 | $100,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 3 | $100,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 4 | $80,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 5 | $60,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 6 | $50,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 7 | $50,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 8 | $50,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Petersburg sits above the national average for incidents per resident.
32 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 | 1 | |
| 10-19 | 1 | |
| 20-29 | 2 | |
| 30-39 | 5 | |
| 40-49 | 2 | |
| 50-59 | 5 | |
| 60-69 | 1 | |
| 70-79 | 0 | |
| 80+ | 0 |
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 9,250 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2,850 | 15.8 mi | |
| 2008 | Equipment and vehicle use | 1,250 | 30.0 mi | |
| 2001 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 865 | 42.7 mi | |
| 2011 | Debris and open burning | 545 | 24.4 mi | |
| 2011 | Power generation/transmission/distribution | 372 | 42.0 mi | |
| 2002 | Natural | 310 | 25.1 mi | |
| 2018 | Power generation/transmission/distribution | 302 | 46.1 mi | |
| 2011 | Power generation/transmission/distribution | 273 | 39.0 mi | |
| 2008 | Equipment and vehicle use | 223 | 32.8 mi | |
| 2009 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 198 | 19.2 mi | |
| 2011 | Debris and open burning | 176 | 14.1 mi | |
| 2007 | Natural | 162 | 24.5 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 Virginia cities with population within ±25% of Petersburg. Useful comparison targets — same state, similar size, different fire profile.
2 departments report to NFIRS for incidents in Petersburg.
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.