In 2025, fire departments serving Waynesboro responded to 118 fire and hazmat incidents — from cooking fires to gas leaks to a single $100 building blaze. Here's the full picture.
Grass fire lead by count. Building fires lead by dollars. Together the top five categories make up about 57% of all calls.
Mar peaks. Oct dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
883 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2023. $5K cumulative property loss. 1 civilian deaths.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021* | 100 | — | |
| 2022 | 229 | — | |
| 2023 | 238 | +3.9% | |
| 2024 | 198 | -16.8% | |
| 2025 | 118 | -40.4% |
* Well below Waynesboro'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 6 building fires Waynesboro departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 225 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 | Engine area, running gear, wheel area | 47 | 20.9% | |
| 2 | Undetermined | 38 | 16.9% | |
| 3 | Outside area, other | 21 | 9.3% | |
| 4 | Cooking area, kitchen | 17 | 7.6% | |
| 5 | Operator/passenger area of transportation equip. | 10 | 4.4% | |
| 6 | Chute/container - trash, rubbish, waste | 8 | 3.6% | |
| 7 | Vehicle area, other | 8 | 3.6% | |
| 8 | Open area - outside; included are farmland, field | 8 | 3.6% | |
| 9 | Wildland, woods | 8 | 3.6% | |
| 10 | Common room, den, family room, living room, lounge | 6 | 2.7% | |
| 11 | All other areas | 54 | 24.0% |
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 Waynesboro mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Undetermined | 103 | 45.8% | |
| 2 | Radiated, conducted heat from operating equipment | 25 | 11.1% | |
| 3 | Arcing | 15 | 6.7% | |
| 4 | Heat from powered equipment, other | 13 | 5.8% | |
| 5 | Hot or smoldering object, other | 12 | 5.3% | |
| 6 | Heat source: other | 10 | 4.4% | |
| 7 | Hot ember or ash | 10 | 4.4% | |
| 8 | Spark, ember or flame from operating equipment | 5 | 2.2% | |
| 9 | Heat from other open flame or smoking materials | 4 | 1.8% | |
| 10 | Heat, spark from friction | 3 | 1.3% | |
| 11 | All other sources | 25 | 11.1% |
Largest single-incident property losses reported by Waynesboro departments in 2025. These 6 fires alone account for 100% of the city's annual total.
| # | Property loss | Type | Severity | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $100 | Passenger vehicle fire | Significant | Investigated |
| 2 | $1 | Outside storage fire | Significant | Investigated |
| 3 | $1 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 4 | $1 | Forest, woods or wildland fire | Significant | Investigated |
| 5 | $1 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 6 | $1 | Forest, woods or wildland fire | Significant | Investigated |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Waynesboro sits above the national average for incidents per resident.
10 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 | 0 | |
| 20-29 | 3 | |
| 30-39 | 3 | |
| 40-49 | 2 | |
| 50-59 | 0 | |
| 60-69 | 0 | |
| 70-79 | 1 | |
| 80+ | 0 |
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 8,312 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | Debris and open burning | 950 | 34.5 mi | |
| 2000 | Arson/incendiarism | 586 | 25.7 mi | |
| 2000 | Debris and open burning | 481 | 19.4 mi | |
| 1994 | Debris and open burning | 468 | 28.5 mi | |
| 2012 | Natural | 445 | 39.0 mi | |
| 2002 | Natural | 405 | 45.2 mi | |
| 1992 | Arson/incendiarism | 373 | 24.1 mi | |
| 1994 | Arson/incendiarism | 366 | 47.1 mi | |
| 2008 | Arson/incendiarism | 346 | 45.6 mi | |
| 2002 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 300 | 34.4 mi | |
| 2012 | Railroad operations and maintenance | 285 | 26.5 mi | |
| 2005 | Arson/incendiarism | 263 | 23.1 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 | 30830 | 883 |
Six Georgia cities with population within ±25% of Waynesboro. 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.