In 2025, fire departments serving Chautauqua responded to 25 fire and hazmat incidents . Here's the full picture.
Cooking fire, confined to container lead by count. Building fires lead by dollars. Together the top five categories make up about 100% of all calls.
Jul peaks. Feb dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
72 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2025.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021* | 2 | — | |
| 2022 | 10 | — | |
| 2023 | 15 | +50.0% | |
| 2024 | 20 | +33.3% | |
| 2025 | 25 | +25.0% |
* Well below Chautauqua'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 0 building fires Chautauqua departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 4 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 | Cooking area, kitchen | 2 | 50.0% | |
| 2 | Undetermined | 2 | 50.0% |
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 Chautauqua mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Undetermined | 3 | 75.0% | |
| 2 | Radiated, conducted heat from operating equipment | 1 | 25.0% |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Chautauqua sits below the national average for incidents per resident.
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 1,835 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 780 | 34.1 mi | |
| 1997 | Debris and open burning | 92 | 21.3 mi | |
| 2010 | Natural | 85 | 36.8 mi | |
| 2020 | Debris and open burning | 72 | 11.6 mi | |
| 2012 | Recreation and ceremony | 64 | 36.4 mi | |
| 1992 | Equipment and vehicle use | 54 | 37.1 mi | |
| 2003 | Recreation and ceremony | 54 | 41.1 mi | |
| 2006 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 50 | 37.0 mi | |
| 2009 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 49 | 46.6 mi | |
| 2009 | Equipment and vehicle use | 49 | 45.8 mi | |
| 2003 | Arson/incendiarism | 49 | 41.1 mi | |
| 1993 | Debris and open burning | 45 | 0.0 mi |
Top 4 ZIP codes by NFIRS incident count across 2021–2025. Each ZIP has its own fire profile — dive in for neighborhood-level context.
Six New York cities with population within ±25% of Chautauqua. Useful comparison targets — same state, similar size, different fire profile.
1 departments report to NFIRS for incidents in Chautauqua.
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.