Red Imported Fire Ants: Treatment in Middle Georgia
Fire ants sting, damage equipment, and disfigure your lawn. Learn how a two-step treatment protocol keeps your yard safe and mound-free.
Pest profile
What Are Red Imported Fire Ants?
Red imported fire ants build large mound colonies in lawns, landscaping, and along driveways throughout Middle Georgia. Their aggressive stinging behavior makes them a safety hazard for families, pets, and anyone working in the yard. Fire ants are especially dense in sandy-clay transition zones like Bonaire and parts of Warner Robins, where the soil structure is ideal for colony building.
Identification
How to Identify Red Imported Fire Ants
Small, reddish-brown ants ranging from 1/16 to 1/4 inch (worker sizes vary within the same colony)
Dome-shaped mounds of loose, granular soil with no visible entry hole at the top
Mounds appear rapidly after rain, sometimes overnight
Extremely aggressive when disturbed — ants swarm up vertically and sting in coordinated waves
Mounds can reach 18 inches tall and 2 feet across in undisturbed areas
Damage signs
How Red Imported Fire Ants Damage Your Lawn
Damage Signs
Dome-shaped mounds disfigure the lawn surface and interfere with mowing
Grass around and under mounds thins out and dies from soil displacement
Painful, burning stings that produce white pustules — dangerous for people with allergies
Fire ants damage irrigation heads, electrical equipment, and landscape lighting by nesting inside them
Detection Methods
Visual: look for dome-shaped mounds of loose soil with no entry hole at the top. They pop up fast after rain.
Gently press the side of a mound with a stick — fire ants boil out aggressively within seconds. (Don’t use your foot.)
Check along driveways, sidewalks, landscape borders, and AC units — fire ants prefer edges and warm spots.
In sandy-clay soil areas (Bonaire, parts of Warner Robins), check frequently — colony density is higher in these transition zones.
Treatment
How We Treat Red Imported Fire Ants
We use a two-step protocol: a broadcast bait applied across the entire lawn that worker ants carry back to the queen, combined with individual mound treatments for fast knockdown of active colonies. The bait takes 2–4 weeks to collapse colonies but provides lasting control. Mound treatments eliminate visible threats within 24–48 hours. We re-treat as needed because fire ants reinvade from neighboring properties.
This page covers fire ant biology and identification. Visit our service page to learn about Attaboy's fire ant treatment program.
Urgency level
Emergency or Routine Treatment?
Fire ants are a safety concern, especially for households with small children, elderly family members, or pets. Individual mound treatment provides quick knockdown, but broadcast bait treatment across the entire yard provides long-term population reduction. We recommend both. This isn’t an emergency in the armyworm sense, but it’s not something to ignore either — fire ant stings can trigger severe allergic reactions.
Affected grasses
Grass Types Vulnerable to Red Imported Fire Ants
Why Attaboy
Professional Red Imported Fire Ants Treatment from Attaboy
Common questions
Frequently Asked Questions About Red Imported Fire Ants
Why do fire ant mounds appear after it rains?
Fire ants push soil to the surface to rebuild and dry out their tunnels after heavy rain. Mounds can appear literally overnight. The colony was already there — rain just forces them to the surface.
Can I get rid of fire ants permanently?
Not permanently — fire ants reinvade from surrounding areas. But consistent broadcast bait treatment keeps populations low. We re-treat as part of an ongoing program to stay ahead of reinvasion.
Why are fire ants worse in Bonaire and parts of Warner Robins?
The sandy-clay transition soils in these areas are ideal for fire ant colony construction. The loose soil makes tunneling easy, and these areas tend to have higher colony densities than heavy clay soils in other parts of the service area.
Is pouring boiling water on fire ant mounds effective?
It kills some ants but rarely reaches the queen, who is deep in the colony. The surviving ants relocate and build a new mound nearby. Broadcast bait is far more effective because it targets the queen specifically.
Take action
Stop Red Imported Fire Ants Before the Damage Spreads
Every day you wait is another day pests feed on your lawn. Get professional insect control backed by our free re-treatment guarantee.
