In 2025, fire departments serving Dexter responded to 11 fire and hazmat incidents . Here's the full picture.
Building fires lead by count. Building fires lead by dollars. Together the top five categories make up about 100% of all calls.
Jan peaks. May dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
25 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2025.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 8 | — | |
| 2022* | 0 | — | |
| 2023* | 2 | — | |
| 2024 | 4 | — | |
| 2025 | 11 | +175.0% |
* Well below Dexter'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 7 building fires Dexter departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Dexter sits below the national average for incidents per resident.
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 1,049 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1992 | Equipment and vehicle use | 198 | 48.6 mi | |
| 2001 | Debris and open burning | 77 | 48.6 mi | |
| 2002 | Arson/incendiarism | 67 | 40.1 mi | |
| 2016 | Debris and open burning | 61 | 16.0 mi | |
| 1992 | Debris and open burning | 50 | 39.6 mi | |
| 2015 | Other causes | 50 | 43.8 mi | |
| 2015 | Debris and open burning | 48 | 45.8 mi | |
| 1992 | Debris and open burning | 42 | 46.8 mi | |
| 1995 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 40 | 23.6 mi | |
| 1997 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 40 | 14.0 mi | |
| 2016 | Misuse of fire by a minor | 35 | 40.5 mi | |
| 2006 | Debris and open burning | 34 | 16.3 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 | 04930 | 25 |
Six Maine cities with population within ±25% of Dexter. Useful comparison targets — same state, similar size, different fire profile.
1 departments report to NFIRS for incidents in Dexter.
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.