In 2025, fire departments serving Belle Mead responded to 33 fire and hazmat incidents . Here's the full picture.
Gas leak (natural gas or LPG) lead by count. Building fires lead by dollars. Together the top five categories make up about 76% of all calls.
Jan peaks. Feb dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
207 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2024.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021* | 18 | — | |
| 2022 | 49 | — | |
| 2023 | 26 | -46.9% | |
| 2024 | 81 | +211.5% | |
| 2025 | 33 | -59.3% |
* Well below Belle Mead'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 1 building fires Belle Mead departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 13 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 | Undetermined | 13 | 100.0% |
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 Belle Mead mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Undetermined | 12 | 92.3% | |
| 2 | Candle | 1 | 7.7% |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Belle Mead sits below the national average for incidents per resident.
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 68,148 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1995 | Arson/incendiarism | 19,225 | 42.6 mi | |
| 2019 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 11,638 | 49.5 mi | |
| 1992 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 5,284 | 47.2 mi | |
| 1992 | Arson/incendiarism | 4,832 | 49.0 mi | |
| 1992 | Arson/incendiarism | 2,900 | 40.6 mi | |
| 2001 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2,730 | 39.2 mi | |
| 2002 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2,600 | 31.5 mi | |
| 2014 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2,300 | 33.6 mi | |
| 2010 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2,240 | 31.8 mi | |
| 2016 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1,500 | 34.0 mi | |
| 2017 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1,500 | 34.4 mi | |
| 2002 | Recreation and ceremony | 1,277 | 43.8 mi |
Top 2 ZIP codes by NFIRS incident count across 2021–2025. Each ZIP has its own fire profile — dive in for neighborhood-level context.
Six New Jersey cities with population within ±25% of Belle Mead. Useful comparison targets — same state, similar size, different fire profile.
1 departments report to NFIRS for incidents in Belle Mead.
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.