In 2025, fire departments serving Elmwood Park responded to 185 fire and hazmat incidents — from cooking fires to gas leaks to a single $250K 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 64% of all calls.
Apr peaks. Jan dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
786 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2021. $1.4M cumulative property loss.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 215 | — | |
| 2022* | 1 | — | |
| 2023 | 177 | — | |
| 2024 | 208 | +17.5% | |
| 2025 | 185 | -11.1% |
* Well below Elmwood Park'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 20 building fires Elmwood Park departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 107 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 | 16.8% | |
| 2 | Outside area, other | 16 | 15.0% | |
| 3 | Undetermined | 10 | 9.3% | |
| 4 | Exterior, exposed surface | 6 | 5.6% | |
| 5 | Cooking area, kitchen | 5 | 4.7% | |
| 6 | Cargo/trunk area - all vehicles | 5 | 4.7% | |
| 7 | Highway, parking lot, street: on or near | 5 | 4.7% | |
| 8 | Open area - outside; included are farmland, field | 5 | 4.7% | |
| 9 | Bedroom - < 5 persons; included are jail or prison | 4 | 3.7% | |
| 10 | Laundry area, wash house (laundry) | 3 | 2.8% | |
| 11 | All other areas | 30 | 28.0% |
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 Elmwood Park mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Undetermined | 47 | 43.9% | |
| 2 | Arcing | 17 | 15.9% | |
| 3 | Hot or smoldering object, other | 10 | 9.3% | |
| 4 | Radiated, conducted heat from operating equipment | 9 | 8.4% | |
| 5 | Heat from powered equipment, other | 8 | 7.5% | |
| 6 | Cigarette | 5 | 4.7% | |
| 7 | Cigarette lighter | 3 | 2.8% | |
| 8 | Heat from other open flame or smoking materials | 2 | 1.9% | |
| 9 | Candle | 2 | 1.9% | |
| 10 | Molten, hot material | 1 | 0.9% | |
| 11 | All other sources | 3 | 2.8% |
Largest single-incident property losses reported by Elmwood Park departments in 2025. These 6 fires alone account for 100% of the city's annual total.
| # | Property loss | Type | Severity | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $249,670 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 2 | $130,509 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 3 | $122,832 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 4 | $35,000 | Road freight or transport vehicle fire | Significant | Investigated |
| 5 | $2,800 | Passenger vehicle fire | Significant | Investigated |
| 6 | $9 | Gasoline or other flammable liquid spill | Significant | Investigated |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Elmwood Park sits above the national average for incidents per resident.
6 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 | 0 | |
| 10-19 | 0 | |
| 20-29 | 2 | |
| 30-39 | 4 | |
| 40-49 | 0 | |
| 50-59 | 0 | |
| 60-69 | 0 | |
| 70-79 | 0 | |
| 80+ | 0 |
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 8,905 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1999 | Smoking | 700 | 32.0 mi | |
| 2016 | Recreation and ceremony | 641 | 18.5 mi | |
| 2016 | Recreation and ceremony | 552 | 22.4 mi | |
| 1994 | Smoking | 500 | 39.1 mi | |
| 2001 | Arson/incendiarism | 485 | 22.7 mi | |
| 2012 | Smoking | 481 | 26.3 mi | |
| 2010 | Firearms and explosives use | 475 | 30.9 mi | |
| 1999 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 468 | 32.0 mi | |
| 2006 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 450 | 42.4 mi | |
| 1999 | Recreation and ceremony | 410 | 25.1 mi | |
| 1999 | Debris and open burning | 374 | 45.4 mi | |
| 2013 | Recreation and ceremony | 363 | 13.9 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 | 07407 | 786 |
Six New Jersey cities with population within ±25% of Elmwood Park. Useful comparison targets — same state, similar size, different fire profile.
1 departments report to NFIRS for incidents in Elmwood Park.
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.