In 2025, fire departments serving Riverdale responded to 105 fire and hazmat incidents — from cooking fires to gas leaks to a single $175K building blaze. Here's the full picture.
Incomplete 2025 data. Riverdale's departments reported 105 incidents to NFIRS for 2025, against about 364 in a typical year, so 2025 figures on this page undercount. The 2021–2025 totals are the better guide.
Grass fire lead by count. Building fires lead by dollars. Together the top five categories make up about 58% of all calls.
Mar peaks. Apr dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
1,820 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2022. $11.7M cumulative property loss. 4 civilian deaths.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 389 | — | |
| 2022 | 475 | +22.1% | |
| 2023 | 472 | -0.6% | |
| 2024 | 379 | -19.7% | |
| 2025* | 105 | — |
* Well below Riverdale'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 13 building fires Riverdale departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 407 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 | 143 | 35.1% | |
| 2 | Engine area, running gear, wheel area | 54 | 13.3% | |
| 3 | Cooking area, kitchen | 36 | 8.8% | |
| 4 | Bedroom - < 5 persons; included are jail or prison | 18 | 4.4% | |
| 5 | Common room, den, family room, living room, lounge | 14 | 3.4% | |
| 6 | Laundry area, wash house (laundry) | 14 | 3.4% | |
| 7 | Vehicle area, other | 13 | 3.2% | |
| 8 | Vehicle storage area; garage, carport | 12 | 2.9% | |
| 9 | Attic: vacant, crawl space above top story, cupola | 8 | 2.0% | |
| 10 | Wildland, woods | 8 | 2.0% | |
| 11 | All other areas | 87 | 21.4% |
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 Riverdale mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Undetermined | 259 | 63.6% | |
| 2 | Heat source: other | 33 | 8.1% | |
| 3 | Heat from powered equipment, other | 24 | 5.9% | |
| 4 | Spark, ember or flame from operating equipment | 13 | 3.2% | |
| 5 | Arcing | 13 | 3.2% | |
| 6 | Hot or smoldering object, other | 11 | 2.7% | |
| 7 | Radiated, conducted heat from operating equipment | 6 | 1.5% | |
| 8 | Heat spread from another fire, other | 6 | 1.5% | |
| 9 | Hot ember or ash | 5 | 1.2% | |
| 10 | Heat from other open flame or smoking materials | 5 | 1.2% | |
| 11 | All other sources | 32 | 7.9% |
Largest single-incident property losses reported by Riverdale departments in 2025. These 8 fires alone account for 98% of the city's annual total.
| # | Property loss | Type | Severity | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $175,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 2 | $175,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 3 | $150,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 4 | $50,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 5 | $50,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 6 | $25,000 | Fire in mobile home used as fixed residence | Significant | Investigated |
| 7 | $10,000 | Passenger vehicle fire | Significant | Investigated |
| 8 | $5,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Riverdale sits below the national average for incidents per resident.
22 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 | 2 | |
| 20-29 | 6 | |
| 30-39 | 3 | |
| 40-49 | 3 | |
| 50-59 | 4 | |
| 60-69 | 2 | |
| 70-79 | 1 | |
| 80+ | 0 |
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 5,224 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | Debris and open burning | 519 | 43.1 mi | |
| 2000 | Debris and open burning | 400 | 47.9 mi | |
| 2011 | Debris and open burning | 356 | 48.7 mi | |
| 1994 | Railroad operations and maintenance | 347 | 36.2 mi | |
| 2015 | Arson/incendiarism | 341 | 49.8 mi | |
| 2000 | Misuse of fire by a minor | 305 | 19.9 mi | |
| 2012 | Power generation/transmission/distribution | 305 | 43.4 mi | |
| 2015 | Debris and open burning | 234 | 45.9 mi | |
| 1999 | Debris and open burning | 199 | 47.1 mi | |
| 2016 | Debris and open burning | 167 | 42.4 mi | |
| 1996 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 164 | 48.5 mi | |
| 2007 | Debris and open burning | 160 | 39.8 mi |
Top 4 ZIP codes by NFIRS incident count across 2021–2025. Each ZIP has its own fire profile — dive in for neighborhood-level context.
Six Georgia cities with population within ±25% of Riverdale. Useful comparison targets — same state, similar size, different fire profile.
2 departments report to NFIRS for incidents in Riverdale.
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.