In 2025, fire departments serving Benton City responded to 197 fire and hazmat incidents — from cooking fires to gas leaks to a single $400K building blaze. Here's the full picture.
Brush, or brush and grass mixture fire lead by count. Building fires lead by dollars. Together the top five categories make up about 69% of all calls.
Jun peaks. Feb dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
1,000 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2023. $4.0M cumulative property loss. 2 civilian deaths.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 218 | — | |
| 2022 | 153 | -29.8% | |
| 2023 | 246 | +60.8% | |
| 2024 | 186 | -24.4% | |
| 2025 | 197 | +5.9% |
For the 21 building fires Benton City departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 189 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 | 31 | 16.4% | |
| 2 | Engine area, running gear, wheel area | 29 | 15.3% | |
| 3 | Open area - outside; included are farmland, field | 23 | 12.2% | |
| 4 | Outside area, other | 21 | 11.1% | |
| 5 | Other | 10 | 5.3% | |
| 6 | Vehicle area, other | 9 | 4.8% | |
| 7 | Cooking area, kitchen | 7 | 3.7% | |
| 8 | Wildland, woods | 7 | 3.7% | |
| 9 | Storage area, other | 6 | 3.2% | |
| 10 | Wall surface: exterior | 6 | 3.2% | |
| 11 | All other areas | 40 | 21.2% |
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 Benton City mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Undetermined | 83 | 43.9% | |
| 2 | Heat source: other | 16 | 8.5% | |
| 3 | Hot ember or ash | 14 | 7.4% | |
| 4 | Arcing | 13 | 6.9% | |
| 5 | Heat from powered equipment, other | 10 | 5.3% | |
| 6 | Radiated, conducted heat from operating equipment | 10 | 5.3% | |
| 7 | Heat from direct flame, convection currents | 8 | 4.2% | |
| 8 | Spark, ember or flame from operating equipment | 6 | 3.2% | |
| 9 | Hot or smoldering object, other | 4 | 2.1% | |
| 10 | Radiated heat from another fire | 4 | 2.1% | |
| 11 | All other sources | 21 | 11.1% |
Largest single-incident property losses reported by Benton City departments in 2025. These 8 fires alone account for 94% of the city's annual total.
| # | Property loss | Type | Severity | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $400,000 | Building fires | Major | Investigated |
| 2 | $180,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 3 | $150,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 4 | $120,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 5 | $45,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 6 | $40,000 | Passenger vehicle fire | Significant | Investigated |
| 7 | $30,000 | Brush, or brush and grass mixture fire | Significant | Investigated |
| 8 | $30,000 | Passenger vehicle fire | Significant | Investigated |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Benton City sits above the national average for incidents per resident.
23 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 | 0 | |
| 10-19 | 1 | |
| 20-29 | 5 | |
| 30-39 | 4 | |
| 40-49 | 8 | |
| 50-59 | 1 | |
| 60-69 | 2 | |
| 70-79 | 2 | |
| 80+ | 0 |
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 1,010,741 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | Equipment and vehicle use | 171,915 | 35.6 mi | |
| 2000 | Equipment and vehicle use | 163,884 | 25.5 mi | |
| 2008 | Natural | 78,000 | 43.7 mi | |
| 2007 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 72,641 | 26.7 mi | |
| 1996 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 57,520 | 31.3 mi | |
| 2009 | Natural | 48,902 | 27.6 mi | |
| 2000 | Natural | 46,802 | 45.0 mi | |
| 2019 | Recreation and ceremony | 41,748 | 25.0 mi | |
| 2017 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 30,648 | 27.2 mi | |
| 2014 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 25,000 | 47.9 mi | |
| 2020 | Natural | 24,892 | 41.3 mi | |
| 2017 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 24,650 | 39.6 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 | 99320 | 1,000 |
Six Washington cities with population within ±25% of Benton City. 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.