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Also leave portions of your yard undisturbed year round. Leave those leaves in your garden and spray them down with the hose every now and then if they get dry. Also run all those "mosquito control" companies out of town, because they're killing all the insects on all the properties around wherever they spray

A bigger issue is how people maintain their yards. Lawns are the ecological equivalent of a parking lot. Lawns are terrible for the local species, as are all of the non-native species used in modern landscaping. Once you learn what is actually native and what is not, you'll be completely shocked at how few native species we cultivate.

Another really huge issue is everyone religiously scrubbing their yard of fallen leaves. Leaves need to stay on the ground. They are essentially compost for trees, and tons and tons of bugs lay eggs in fallen leaves, including fireflies.

I quit mowing my lawn and let some native plants grow up in place of grass and stopped eradicating the fallen leaves, and that summer my yard was absolutely lit the fuck up with fireflies.

All of this is currently reversible. We just have to stop buying into stupid capitalist yard maintenance traditions and start working with the native species. It's honestly much less work than trying to make all of these Chinese species that are in everyone's yards work.

I saw some walking 1 or 2 months ago. I had to stop and watch for a minute because it's been maybe decades sense I've seen them irl. It was by a wooded area, so hopefully they don't knock down those trees anytime soon. We already had some foxes ran out of their home from construction the other direction.

I've seen 2 different kinds in my yard this summer: light bluish-white light ones that blink or pulse, and yellow ones that light up and fly in a downwards "J" pattern. For a long time I would only see the lighter blinking ones but then one day I noticed a few of the yellow "J" making ones that I haven't seen in a long time.

But 10-20 years ago the yellow "J" ones were most common and very abundant, and I barely recall seeing any of the lighter bluish blinkers.

Did they have a fountain or pond in the courtyard? We have an above ground pool and are one of the few neighbors with fireflies in our yard. We also have a lot of native flowers though so maybe that helps

Start using modern non chemical methods.

Yes! Let's start with targeting human biting species of mosquitos and make them extinct!

Also the weird fixation with perfectly manicured lawns with absolutely no debris and no plants touching any other plants.

They like to lay their eggs on leaves and grasses on the ground. Doesn't mix well with lawn mowers and rakes.

I used to mow my parents property, and I would leave about 1/4 acre unmowed on the side, touching the treeline. They had so many fireflies hanging around the tall grass over the summers.

This summer I moved too far to keep mowing, and they don't leave anything, and have been complaining they haven't seen any fireflies all summer.

I was days from signing to check to remove a couple trees in my yard in Pennsylvania when I stepped out back one night and saw dozens of fireflies in them. I hadn't seen fireflies in years and decided then and there that the trees had to stay.

Also, a note from other comments, I absolutely never rake my leaves

I honestly don't remember the last time I did see one