In 2025, fire departments serving East Chicago responded to 177 fire and hazmat incidents — from cooking fires to gas leaks to a single $15K building blaze. Here's the full picture.
Gas leak (natural gas or LPG) lead by count. Building fires lead by dollars. Together the top five categories make up about 56% of all calls.
Jul peaks. Sep dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
642 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2024. $627K cumulative property loss.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021* | 3 | — | |
| 2022* | 27 | — | |
| 2023 | 200 | — | |
| 2024 | 235 | +17.5% | |
| 2025 | 177 | -24.7% |
* Well below East Chicago'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 East Chicago departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 162 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 | 34 | 21.0% | |
| 2 | Outside area, other | 23 | 14.2% | |
| 3 | Cooking area, kitchen | 13 | 8.0% | |
| 4 | Vehicle area, other | 13 | 8.0% | |
| 5 | Engine area, running gear, wheel area | 11 | 6.8% | |
| 6 | Bedroom - < 5 persons; included are jail or prison | 8 | 4.9% | |
| 7 | Vehicle storage area; garage, carport | 8 | 4.9% | |
| 8 | Open area - outside; included are farmland, field | 6 | 3.7% | |
| 9 | Other | 5 | 3.1% | |
| 10 | Highway, parking lot, street: on or near | 5 | 3.1% | |
| 11 | All other areas | 36 | 22.2% |
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 East Chicago mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Undetermined | 97 | 59.9% | |
| 2 | Hot or smoldering object, other | 17 | 10.5% | |
| 3 | Heat source: other | 9 | 5.6% | |
| 4 | Arcing | 9 | 5.6% | |
| 5 | Heat from powered equipment, other | 8 | 4.9% | |
| 6 | Heat from other open flame or smoking materials | 5 | 3.1% | |
| 7 | Spark, ember or flame from operating equipment | 3 | 1.9% | |
| 8 | Radiated, conducted heat from operating equipment | 2 | 1.2% | |
| 9 | Hot ember or ash | 2 | 1.2% | |
| 10 | Candle | 2 | 1.2% | |
| 11 | All other sources | 8 | 4.9% |
Largest single-incident property losses reported by East Chicago departments in 2025. These 4 fires alone account for 100% of the city's annual total.
| # | Property loss | Type | Severity | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $15,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 2 | $12,500 | Passenger vehicle fire | Significant | Investigated |
| 3 | $500 | Fire, other | Significant | Investigated |
| 4 | $100 | Trash or rubbish fire, contained | Significant | Investigated |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. East Chicago sits below the national average for incidents per resident.
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 5,250 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2003 | Natural | 600 | 47.2 mi | |
| 2002 | Railroad operations and maintenance | 396 | 9.3 mi | |
| 1993 | Railroad operations and maintenance | 341 | 9.3 mi | |
| 2012 | Railroad operations and maintenance | 291 | 8.7 mi | |
| 2019 | Railroad operations and maintenance | 274 | 10.3 mi | |
| 1995 | Debris and open burning | 253 | 9.5 mi | |
| 1996 | Railroad operations and maintenance | 244 | 9.2 mi | |
| 2003 | Debris and open burning | 232 | 42.0 mi | |
| 2019 | Railroad operations and maintenance | 216 | 9.4 mi | |
| 2003 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 204 | 8.4 mi | |
| 1994 | Railroad operations and maintenance | 191 | 9.5 mi | |
| 1994 | Railroad operations and maintenance | 190 | 7.8 mi |
Top 4 ZIP codes by NFIRS incident count across 2021–2025. Each ZIP has its own fire profile — dive in for neighborhood-level context.
Six Indiana cities with population within ±25% of East Chicago. Useful comparison targets — same state, similar size, different fire profile.
1 departments report to NFIRS for incidents in East Chicago.
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.