In 2025, fire departments serving Chester responded to 465 fire and hazmat incidents — from cooking fires to gas leaks to a single $500K building blaze. 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 71% of all calls.
Dec peaks. May dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
2,418 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2023. $9.3M cumulative property loss. 5 civilian deaths.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 293 | — | |
| 2022 | 485 | +65.5% | |
| 2023 | 641 | +32.2% | |
| 2024 | 534 | -16.7% | |
| 2025 | 465 | -12.9% |
For the 91 building fires Chester departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 444 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 | 120 | 27.0% | |
| 2 | Engine area, running gear, wheel area | 46 | 10.4% | |
| 3 | Cooking area, kitchen | 42 | 9.5% | |
| 4 | Bedroom - < 5 persons; included are jail or prison | 23 | 5.2% | |
| 5 | Operator/passenger area of transportation equip. | 23 | 5.2% | |
| 6 | Open area - outside; included are farmland, field | 22 | 5.0% | |
| 7 | Outside area, other | 21 | 4.7% | |
| 8 | Highway, parking lot, street: on or near | 16 | 3.6% | |
| 9 | Other | 9 | 2.0% | |
| 10 | Ceiling & floor assembly, crawl space b/t stories | 9 | 2.0% | |
| 11 | All other areas | 113 | 25.5% |
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 Chester mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Undetermined | 337 | 75.9% | |
| 2 | Radiated, conducted heat from operating equipment | 17 | 3.8% | |
| 3 | Hot ember or ash | 15 | 3.4% | |
| 4 | Arcing | 14 | 3.2% | |
| 5 | Spark, ember or flame from operating equipment | 12 | 2.7% | |
| 6 | Heat from powered equipment, other | 7 | 1.6% | |
| 7 | Cigarette lighter | 7 | 1.6% | |
| 8 | Heat from direct flame, convection currents | 7 | 1.6% | |
| 9 | Hot or smoldering object, other | 6 | 1.4% | |
| 10 | Flame/torch used for lighting | 5 | 1.1% | |
| 11 | All other sources | 17 | 3.8% |
Largest single-incident property losses reported by Chester departments in 2025. These 8 fires alone account for 55% of the city's annual total.
| # | Property loss | Type | Severity | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $500,000 | Building fires | Major | Investigated |
| 2 | $175,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 3 | $175,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 4 | $150,000 | Road freight or transport vehicle fire | Significant | Investigated |
| 5 | $150,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 6 | $150,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 7 | $150,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 8 | $150,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Chester sits above the national average for incidents per resident.
41 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 | 1 | |
| 10-19 | 0 | |
| 20-29 | 4 | |
| 30-39 | 15 | |
| 40-49 | 7 | |
| 50-59 | 3 | |
| 60-69 | 0 | |
| 70-79 | 0 | |
| 80+ | 0 |
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 51,036 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 11,638 | 49.2 mi | |
| 2017 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 3,577 | 40.5 mi | |
| 1992 | Arson/incendiarism | 2,900 | 42.3 mi | |
| 2002 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2,600 | 48.0 mi | |
| 2007 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2,450 | 36.6 mi | |
| 2014 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2,300 | 48.0 mi | |
| 2010 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2,240 | 46.4 mi | |
| 2020 | Arson/incendiarism | 2,107 | 28.8 mi | |
| 1995 | Arson/incendiarism | 2,000 | 44.7 mi | |
| 2008 | Arson/incendiarism | 1,950 | 33.1 mi | |
| 1997 | Arson/incendiarism | 1,900 | 36.9 mi | |
| 2014 | Arson/incendiarism | 1,600 | 41.0 mi |
Top 10 ZIP codes by NFIRS incident count across 2021–2025. Each ZIP has its own fire profile — dive in for neighborhood-level context.
Six Pennsylvania cities with population within ±25% of Chester. Useful comparison targets — same state, similar size, different fire profile.
1 departments report to NFIRS for incidents in Chester.
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.