In 2025, fire departments serving Coushatta responded to 155 fire and hazmat incidents — from cooking fires to gas leaks to a single $100K 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 51% of all calls.
Oct peaks. Jun dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
503 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2023. $2.5M cumulative property loss. 3 civilian deaths.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021* | 6 | — | |
| 2022* | 52 | — | |
| 2023 | 157 | — | |
| 2024 | 133 | -15.3% | |
| 2025 | 155 | +16.5% |
* Well below Coushatta'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 15 building fires Coushatta departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 239 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 | 75 | 31.4% | |
| 2 | Other | 31 | 13.0% | |
| 3 | Engine area, running gear, wheel area | 26 | 10.9% | |
| 4 | Outside area, other | 25 | 10.5% | |
| 5 | Open area - outside; included are farmland, field | 16 | 6.7% | |
| 6 | Vehicle area, other | 10 | 4.2% | |
| 7 | Wildland, woods | 5 | 2.1% | |
| 8 | Cooking area, kitchen | 4 | 1.7% | |
| 9 | Bathroom, checkroom, lavatory, locker room | 4 | 1.7% | |
| 10 | Equipment or service area, other | 4 | 1.7% | |
| 11 | All other areas | 39 | 16.3% |
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 Coushatta mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Undetermined | 119 | 49.8% | |
| 2 | Heat source: other | 25 | 10.5% | |
| 3 | Arcing | 16 | 6.7% | |
| 4 | Heat from powered equipment, other | 12 | 5.0% | |
| 5 | Hot or smoldering object, other | 12 | 5.0% | |
| 6 | Radiated, conducted heat from operating equipment | 11 | 4.6% | |
| 7 | Hot ember or ash | 7 | 2.9% | |
| 8 | Heat, spark from friction | 5 | 2.1% | |
| 9 | Heat spread from another fire, other | 5 | 2.1% | |
| 10 | Flying brand, ember, spark | 5 | 2.1% | |
| 11 | All other sources | 22 | 9.2% |
Largest single-incident property losses reported by Coushatta departments in 2025. These 8 fires alone account for 67% of the city's annual total.
| # | Property loss | Type | Severity | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $100,000 | Passenger vehicle fire | Significant | Investigated |
| 2 | $100,000 | Road freight or transport vehicle fire | Significant | Investigated |
| 3 | $100,000 | Fire in mobile prop. used as a fixed struc., other | Significant | Investigated |
| 4 | $70,000 | Passenger vehicle fire | Significant | Investigated |
| 5 | $50,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 6 | $50,000 | Fire in mobile home used as fixed residence | Significant | Investigated |
| 7 | $30,000 | Passenger vehicle fire | Significant | Investigated |
| 8 | $25,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Coushatta sits above the national average for incidents per resident.
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 30,359 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 4,969 | 16.5 mi | |
| 2010 | Natural | 4,363 | 40.4 mi | |
| 1997 | Arson/incendiarism | 3,134 | 41.5 mi | |
| 2000 | Natural | 2,500 | 39.7 mi | |
| 2015 | Recreation and ceremony | 1,858 | 42.0 mi | |
| 2015 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1,254 | 13.7 mi | |
| 2005 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1,100 | 47.1 mi | |
| 1998 | Arson/incendiarism | 1,075 | 36.0 mi | |
| 2000 | Recreation and ceremony | 1,000 | 39.7 mi | |
| 1996 | Arson/incendiarism | 906 | 23.2 mi | |
| 2016 | Equipment and vehicle use | 874 | 49.4 mi | |
| 1999 | Arson/incendiarism | 800 | 32.4 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 Louisiana cities with population within ±25% of Coushatta. Useful comparison targets — same state, similar size, different fire profile.
1 departments report to NFIRS for incidents in Coushatta.
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.