In 2025, fire departments serving Potwin responded to 17 fire and hazmat incidents . Here's the full picture.
Grass fire lead by count. Building fires lead by dollars. Together the top five categories make up about 88% of all calls.
Mar peaks. Jan dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
61 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2025. $36K cumulative property loss.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 11 | — | |
| 2022 | 13 | +18.2% | |
| 2023 | 14 | +7.7% | |
| 2024* | 6 | — | |
| 2025 | 17 | — |
* Well below Potwin'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 0 building fires Potwin departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 4 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 | 3 | 75.0% | |
| 2 | Open area - outside; included are farmland, field | 1 | 25.0% |
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 Potwin mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Undetermined | 4 | 100.0% |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Potwin sits above the national average for incidents per resident.
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 195,785 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2002 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 30,000 | 27.6 mi | |
| 2016 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 25,650 | 47.6 mi | |
| 1996 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 23,000 | 49.1 mi | |
| 2016 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 14,000 | 38.1 mi | |
| 2006 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 10,700 | 8.2 mi | |
| 1996 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 10,000 | 30.7 mi | |
| 2006 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 8,800 | 36.8 mi | |
| 2002 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 6,000 | 6.8 mi | |
| 2002 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 5,500 | 11.1 mi | |
| 2020 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 5,500 | 42.3 mi | |
| 2011 | Debris and open burning | 5,000 | 45.4 mi | |
| 2016 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 5,000 | 44.9 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 Kansas cities with population within ±25% of Potwin. Useful comparison targets — same state, similar size, different fire profile.
1 departments report to NFIRS for incidents in Potwin.
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.