In 2025, fire departments serving Waimea responded to 17 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 82% of all calls.
Mar peaks. Jun dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
85 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2024. $13K cumulative property loss.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021* | 9 | — | |
| 2022* | 0 | — | |
| 2023 | 27 | — | |
| 2024 | 32 | +18.5% | |
| 2025 | 17 | -46.9% |
* Well below Waimea'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 Waimea departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 8 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 | Outside area, other | 2 | 25.0% | |
| 2 | Undetermined | 2 | 25.0% | |
| 3 | Entrance way, lobby | 1 | 12.5% | |
| 4 | Office | 1 | 12.5% | |
| 5 | Engine area, running gear, wheel area | 1 | 12.5% | |
| 6 | Highway, parking lot, street: on or near | 1 | 12.5% |
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 Waimea mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Undetermined | 6 | 75.0% | |
| 2 | Heat from powered equipment, other | 1 | 12.5% | |
| 3 | Spark, ember or flame from operating equipment | 1 | 12.5% |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Waimea sits below the national average for incidents per resident.
8 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 | 0 | |
| 10-19 | 0 | |
| 20-29 | 3 | |
| 30-39 | 3 | |
| 40-49 | 2 | |
| 50-59 | 0 | |
| 60-69 | 0 | |
| 70-79 | 0 | |
| 80+ | 0 |
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 116,024 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 25,000 | 3.6 mi | |
| 2018 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 18,000 | 9.8 mi | |
| 1999 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 10,000 | 13.4 mi | |
| 2007 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 9,138 | 11.1 mi | |
| 1998 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 6,500 | 11.4 mi | |
| 1999 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 5,000 | 22.6 mi | |
| 2015 | Equipment and vehicle use | 3,884 | 10.4 mi | |
| 2018 | Equipment and vehicle use | 3,572 | 43.2 mi | |
| 2008 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2,800 | 22.0 mi | |
| 2005 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2,800 | 6.1 mi | |
| 1992 | Recreation and ceremony | 2,800 | 12.0 mi | |
| 2007 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2,640 | 12.1 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 | 96796 | 85 |
Six Hawaii cities with population within ±25% of Waimea. 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.