Spike in outdoor fires across County Waterford
The aftermath of a bonfire on a Waterford City estate, October 2025.
There has been a reported spike in the number of outdoor fires, according to the chief of Waterford Fire Service.
Chief Fire Officer Niall Curtin spoke at a meeting of the Waterford Local Community Safety Partnership (WLCSP) on Monday, March 2, outlining the latest trends and concerns facing the emergency services.
Waterford Fire Service provides coverage to 143,000 people. As Chief Curtin explained: "We actually provide service to a large area of South Kilkenny, which is about 15,000 in population. We also carry out service in some areas of County Cork, which brings that number up to 143,000, over and above the City and County Council population."
He added: "In turn, Tipperary will come in and serve some areas of Waterford county, and also Youghal (Co. Cork)."
As of March 2026, there are 32 full-time firefighters in Waterford City, and a full complement of 124 retained firefighters across the other nine fire stations, an increase from the figure of 93 in 2023.
Attendees at the meeting heard that the Fire Service are "just about to progress" on a new fire station in Kilmacthomas.
Chief Curtin stated: "2024 was actually a very quiet year for incidents for us. When we do our analysis we can see a drop in 2024, for whatever reason, in all types of fires and all types of incidents. But, we had a big spike in outdoor fires last year."
He continued: "Those numbers went way up even though our agricultural upland fires were gone completely last year. We had very, very few of them."
Chief Curtin noted that fires in the Knockmealdown Mountains and the Comeraghs had dropped in part due to subsidies for firefighters. He went on: "In our large urban areas, we're getting these gorse, grass, rubbish and bonfires."
Chief Curtin stressed that bonfires are happening throughout the year, not just on Halloween.
He said: "They're arising in particular areas of our urban environment, particular housing estates. We'll get a run of fires in those particular areas for two, three weeks and then they'll move down the road somewhere.
"We're getting a lot of them. They're bringing a risk of assaults on fire personnel. We're having some pretty serious incidents and near misses."
Alongside the outdoor fires, there has also been an uptick in malicious false reports of fire.
The Chief Fire Officer urged more people to report domestic fires, stressing that there is no call-out fee for reporting such an incident in Waterford.
