In 2025, fire departments serving Cheney responded to 144 fire and hazmat incidents — from cooking fires to gas leaks to a single $500K 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 43% of all calls.
Sep peaks. Mar dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
850 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2021. $145.8M cumulative property loss. 1 civilian deaths.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 271 | — | |
| 2022 | 196 | -27.7% | |
| 2023 | 179 | -8.7% | |
| 2024* | 60 | — | |
| 2025 | 144 | — |
* Well below Cheney'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 14 building fires Cheney departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 131 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 | 26 | 19.8% | |
| 2 | Engine area, running gear, wheel area | 21 | 16.0% | |
| 3 | Outside area, other | 10 | 7.6% | |
| 4 | Cooking area, kitchen | 7 | 5.3% | |
| 5 | Open area - outside; included are farmland, field | 7 | 5.3% | |
| 6 | Bathroom, checkroom, lavatory, locker room | 6 | 4.6% | |
| 7 | Vehicle area, other | 6 | 4.6% | |
| 8 | Bedroom - < 5 persons; included are jail or prison | 5 | 3.8% | |
| 9 | Other | 4 | 3.1% | |
| 10 | Operator/passenger area of transportation equip. | 4 | 3.1% | |
| 11 | All other areas | 35 | 26.7% |
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 Cheney mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Undetermined | 49 | 37.4% | |
| 2 | Heat from powered equipment, other | 16 | 12.2% | |
| 3 | Hot or smoldering object, other | 14 | 10.7% | |
| 4 | Arcing | 9 | 6.9% | |
| 5 | Radiated, conducted heat from operating equipment | 8 | 6.1% | |
| 6 | Hot ember or ash | 6 | 4.6% | |
| 7 | Flame/torch used for lighting | 4 | 3.1% | |
| 8 | Cigarette | 3 | 2.3% | |
| 9 | Heat source: other | 2 | 1.5% | |
| 10 | Molten, hot material | 2 | 1.5% | |
| 11 | All other sources | 18 | 13.7% |
Largest single-incident property losses reported by Cheney departments in 2025. These 8 fires alone account for 97% of the city's annual total.
| # | Property loss | Type | Severity | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $500,000 | Building fires | Major | Investigated |
| 2 | $150,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 3 | $110,400 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 4 | $40,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 5 | $25,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 6 | $15,793 | Passenger vehicle fire | Significant | Investigated |
| 7 | $10,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 8 | $8,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Cheney sits above the national average for incidents per resident.
5 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 | 0 | |
| 20-29 | 0 | |
| 30-39 | 1 | |
| 40-49 | 1 | |
| 50-59 | 0 | |
| 60-69 | 0 | |
| 70-79 | 0 | |
| 80+ | 0 |
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 332,118 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Power generation/transmission/distribution | 127,430 | 35.1 mi | |
| 2015 | Arson/incendiarism | 64,007 | 45.5 mi | |
| 2008 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 19,090 | 42.4 mi | |
| 1998 | Railroad operations and maintenance | 18,120 | 37.1 mi | |
| 2016 | Equipment and vehicle use | 18,117 | 34.5 mi | |
| 2020 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 15,269 | 16.0 mi | |
| 2014 | Firearms and explosives use | 10,552 | 18.3 mi | |
| 2003 | Arson/incendiarism | 10,500 | 46.8 mi | |
| 2016 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 6,017 | 10.9 mi | |
| 2005 | Recreation and ceremony | 5,178 | 40.1 mi | |
| 2018 | Equipment and vehicle use | 5,046 | 29.2 mi | |
| 2016 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 4,983 | 34.6 mi |
Top 9 ZIP codes by NFIRS incident count across 2021–2025. Each ZIP has its own fire profile — dive in for neighborhood-level context.
Six Washington cities with population within ±25% of Cheney. Useful comparison targets — same state, similar size, different fire profile.
1 departments report to NFIRS for incidents in Cheney.
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.