In 2025, fire departments serving Burrillville responded to 11 fire and hazmat incidents — from cooking fires to gas leaks to a single $400K 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 91% of all calls.
Oct peaks. Jan dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
22 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2025. $900K cumulative property loss.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021* | 1 | — | |
| 2022 | 4 | — | |
| 2023* | 1 | — | |
| 2024 | 5 | — | |
| 2025 | 11 | +120.0% |
* Well below Burrillville'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 Burrillville departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 2 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 | 2 | 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 Burrillville mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Heat source: other | 1 | 50.0% | |
| 2 | Hot or smoldering object, other | 1 | 50.0% |
Largest single-incident property losses reported by Burrillville departments in 2025. These 1 fires alone account for 100% of the city's annual total.
| # | Property loss | Type | Severity | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $400,000 | Building fires | Major | Investigated |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Burrillville sits below the national average for incidents per resident.
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 4,152 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 800 | 36.5 mi | |
| 2008 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 700 | 36.5 mi | |
| 1997 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 361 | 49.6 mi | |
| 2003 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 300 | 34.2 mi | |
| 2002 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 300 | 36.5 mi | |
| 2014 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 256 | 36.4 mi | |
| 2001 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 250 | 49.2 mi | |
| 2015 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 250 | 36.9 mi | |
| 2016 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 172 | 36.6 mi | |
| 2020 | Recreation and ceremony | 94 | 29.3 mi | |
| 2020 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 79 | 36.4 mi | |
| 2018 | Debris and open burning | 58 | 34.6 mi |
Top 6 ZIP codes by NFIRS incident count across 2021–2025. Each ZIP has its own fire profile — dive in for neighborhood-level context.
Six Rhode Island cities with population within ±25% of Burrillville. 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.