In 2025, fire departments serving De Motte responded to 52 fire and hazmat incidents — from cooking fires to gas leaks to a single $159K 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 79% of all calls.
Apr peaks. Feb dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
235 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2022. $2.0M cumulative property loss.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021* | 14 | — | |
| 2022 | 66 | — | |
| 2023 | 45 | -31.8% | |
| 2024 | 58 | +28.9% | |
| 2025 | 52 | -10.3% |
* Well below De Motte'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 8 building fires De Motte departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 67 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 | Engine area, running gear, wheel area | 18 | 26.9% | |
| 2 | Exterior, exposed surface | 5 | 7.5% | |
| 3 | Vehicle storage area; garage, carport | 4 | 6.0% | |
| 4 | Vehicle area, other | 3 | 4.5% | |
| 5 | Cargo/trunk area - all vehicles | 3 | 4.5% | |
| 6 | Outside area, other | 3 | 4.5% | |
| 7 | Open area - outside; included are farmland, field | 3 | 4.5% | |
| 8 | Undetermined | 3 | 4.5% | |
| 9 | Other | 2 | 3.0% | |
| 10 | Cooking area, kitchen | 2 | 3.0% | |
| 11 | All other areas | 21 | 31.3% |
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 De Motte mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Spark, ember or flame from operating equipment | 21 | 31.3% | |
| 2 | Hot or smoldering object, other | 14 | 20.9% | |
| 3 | Heat from powered equipment, other | 12 | 17.9% | |
| 4 | Undetermined | 5 | 7.5% | |
| 5 | Radiated, conducted heat from operating equipment | 3 | 4.5% | |
| 6 | Arcing | 3 | 4.5% | |
| 7 | Hot ember or ash | 3 | 4.5% | |
| 8 | Heat, spark from friction | 2 | 3.0% | |
| 9 | Heat from other open flame or smoking materials | 2 | 3.0% | |
| 10 | Backfire from internal combustion engine | 1 | 1.5% | |
| 11 | All other sources | 1 | 1.5% |
Largest single-incident property losses reported by De Motte departments in 2025. These 8 fires alone account for 98% of the city's annual total.
| # | Property loss | Type | Severity | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $158,600 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 2 | $100,000 | Road freight or transport vehicle fire | Significant | Investigated |
| 3 | $50,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 4 | $20,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 5 | $15,000 | Passenger vehicle fire | Significant | Investigated |
| 6 | $15,000 | Passenger vehicle fire | Significant | Investigated |
| 7 | $10,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 8 | $5,000 | Brush, or brush and grass mixture fire | Significant | Investigated |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. De Motte sits above the national average for incidents per resident.
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 4,590 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2002 | Railroad operations and maintenance | 396 | 28.5 mi | |
| 1993 | Railroad operations and maintenance | 341 | 28.6 mi | |
| 2012 | Railroad operations and maintenance | 291 | 28.5 mi | |
| 2019 | Railroad operations and maintenance | 274 | 29.0 mi | |
| 1995 | Debris and open burning | 253 | 26.5 mi | |
| 1996 | Railroad operations and maintenance | 244 | 28.5 mi | |
| 2019 | Railroad operations and maintenance | 216 | 28.4 mi | |
| 2003 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 204 | 28.5 mi | |
| 1994 | Railroad operations and maintenance | 191 | 28.7 mi | |
| 1994 | Railroad operations and maintenance | 190 | 28.7 mi | |
| 2003 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 187 | 28.6 mi | |
| 2016 | Railroad operations and maintenance | 182 | 28.4 mi |
Top 1 ZIP codes by NFIRS incident count across 2021–2025. Each ZIP has its own fire profile — dive in for neighborhood-level context.
| # | ZIP | 5-yr incidents | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 46310 | 235 |
Six Indiana cities with population within ±25% of De Motte. 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.