In 2025, fire departments serving Elizabeth responded to 1,180 fire and hazmat incidents . Here's the full picture.
Electrical wiring/equipment problem, other lead by count. Building fires lead by dollars. Together the top five categories make up about 60% of all calls.
Dec peaks. Feb dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
4,248 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2025. $11.9M cumulative property loss. 1 civilian deaths.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021* | 3 | — | |
| 2022 | 932 | — | |
| 2023 | 958 | +2.8% | |
| 2024 | 1,175 | +22.7% | |
| 2025 | 1,180 | +0.4% |
* Well below Elizabeth'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 60 building fires Elizabeth departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 639 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 | 102 | 16.0% | |
| 2 | Engine area, running gear, wheel area | 85 | 13.3% | |
| 3 | Outside area, other | 74 | 11.6% | |
| 4 | Cooking area, kitchen | 38 | 5.9% | |
| 5 | Other | 29 | 4.5% | |
| 6 | Bedroom - < 5 persons; included are jail or prison | 27 | 4.2% | |
| 7 | Highway, parking lot, street: on or near | 23 | 3.6% | |
| 8 | Vehicle area, other | 21 | 3.3% | |
| 9 | Laundry area, wash house (laundry) | 17 | 2.7% | |
| 10 | Open area - outside; included are farmland, field | 16 | 2.5% | |
| 11 | All other areas | 207 | 32.4% |
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 Elizabeth mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Undetermined | 343 | 53.7% | |
| 2 | Heat from powered equipment, other | 72 | 11.3% | |
| 3 | Hot or smoldering object, other | 66 | 10.3% | |
| 4 | Arcing | 28 | 4.4% | |
| 5 | Spark, ember or flame from operating equipment | 18 | 2.8% | |
| 6 | Heat source: other | 17 | 2.7% | |
| 7 | Hot ember or ash | 17 | 2.7% | |
| 8 | Heat from other open flame or smoking materials | 12 | 1.9% | |
| 9 | Cigarette | 11 | 1.7% | |
| 10 | Radiated, conducted heat from operating equipment | 10 | 1.6% | |
| 11 | All other sources | 45 | 7.0% |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Elizabeth sits above the national average for incidents per resident.
51 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 | 5 | |
| 30-39 | 13 | |
| 40-49 | 5 | |
| 50-59 | 2 | |
| 60-69 | 2 | |
| 70-79 | 0 | |
| 80+ | 0 |
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 22,508 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2,730 | 48.8 mi | |
| 2002 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2,600 | 46.9 mi | |
| 2014 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2,300 | 48.6 mi | |
| 2010 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2,240 | 48.1 mi | |
| 2016 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1,500 | 49.5 mi | |
| 2017 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1,500 | 49.1 mi | |
| 1992 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1,000 | 47.1 mi | |
| 1997 | Smoking | 702 | 48.3 mi | |
| 1999 | Smoking | 700 | 48.9 mi | |
| 2016 | Recreation and ceremony | 641 | 35.3 mi | |
| 2016 | Recreation and ceremony | 552 | 38.9 mi | |
| 2014 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 536 | 47.9 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 New Jersey cities with population within ±25% of Elizabeth. Useful comparison targets — same state, similar size, different fire profile.
1 departments report to NFIRS for incidents in Elizabeth.
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.