In 2025, fire departments serving Brownsville responded to 15 fire and hazmat incidents — from cooking fires to gas leaks to a single $300 building blaze. Here's the full picture.
Building fires lead by count. Building fires lead by dollars. Together the top five categories make up about 87% of all calls.
Jan peaks. May dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
29 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2025. $300 cumulative property loss.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021* | 1 | — | |
| 2022 | 4 | — | |
| 2023 | 5 | +25.0% | |
| 2024 | 4 | -20.0% | |
| 2025 | 15 | +275.0% |
* Well below Brownsville'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 6 building fires Brownsville departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 1 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 | 1 | 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 Brownsville mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hot ember or ash | 1 | 100.0% |
Largest single-incident property losses reported by Brownsville departments in 2025. These 1 fires alone account for 100% of the city's annual total.
| # | Property loss | Type | Severity | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $300 | Outside storage fire | Significant | Investigated |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Brownsville sits above the national average for incidents per resident.
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 10,783 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2003 | Arson/incendiarism | 1,100 | 30.7 mi | |
| 1994 | Arson/incendiarism | 1,015 | 10.2 mi | |
| 2014 | Debris and open burning | 829 | 14.8 mi | |
| 1998 | Equipment and vehicle use | 630 | 14.8 mi | |
| 2006 | Debris and open burning | 612 | 14.7 mi | |
| 2003 | Debris and open burning | 572 | 48.6 mi | |
| 2003 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 508 | 11.0 mi | |
| 2003 | Arson/incendiarism | 484 | 35.0 mi | |
| 2003 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 400 | 30.9 mi | |
| 2019 | Arson/incendiarism | 385 | 41.7 mi | |
| 2015 | Railroad operations and maintenance | 366 | 43.6 mi | |
| 2014 | Debris and open burning | 364 | 11.6 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 Wisconsin cities with population within ±25% of Brownsville. Useful comparison targets — same state, similar size, different fire profile.
1 departments report to NFIRS for incidents in Brownsville.
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.