In 2025, fire departments serving Elma responded to 12 fire and hazmat incidents — from cooking fires to gas leaks to a single $1 building blaze. Here's the full picture.
Incomplete 2025 data. Elma's departments reported 12 incidents to NFIRS for 2025, against about 38 in a typical year, so 2025 figures on this page undercount. The 2021–2025 totals are the better guide.
Building fires lead by count. Building fires lead by dollars. Together the top five categories make up about 92% of all calls.
Jan peaks. Mar dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
188 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2023. $207 cumulative property loss.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 43 | — | |
| 2022 | 37 | -14.0% | |
| 2023 | 71 | +91.9% | |
| 2024 | 25 | -64.8% | |
| 2025* | 12 | — |
* Well below Elma'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 6 building fires Elma departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
Largest single-incident property losses reported by Elma departments in 2025. These 1 fires alone account for 100% of the city's annual total.
| # | Property loss | Type | Severity | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $1 | Carbon monoxide incident | Significant | Investigated |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Elma sits below the national average for incidents per resident.
Top 24 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 608 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2006 | Debris and open burning | 88 | 43.0 mi | |
| 2020 | Debris and open burning | 72 | 48.6 mi | |
| 2006 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 50 | 49.8 mi | |
| 2020 | Equipment and vehicle use | 48 | 46.9 mi | |
| 1994 | Debris and open burning | 44 | 44.6 mi | |
| 2020 | Debris and open burning | 42 | 45.7 mi | |
| 1995 | Smoking | 25 | 31.2 mi | |
| 2015 | Arson/incendiarism | 23 | 48.3 mi | |
| 1999 | Debris and open burning | 20 | 43.5 mi | |
| 1995 | Smoking | 20 | 35.0 mi | |
| 2012 | Debris and open burning | 19 | 28.2 mi | |
| 2016 | Debris and open burning | 16 | 4.0 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 | 14059 | 187 |
Six New York cities with population within ±25% of Elma. Useful comparison targets — same state, similar size, different fire profile.
3 departments report to NFIRS for incidents in Elma.
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.