In 2025, fire departments serving Fountain Hills responded to 49 fire and hazmat incidents — from cooking fires to gas leaks to a single $100K 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 63% of all calls.
May peaks. Aug dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
127 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2024. $245K cumulative property loss.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021* | 0 | — | |
| 2022* | 0 | — | |
| 2023* | 10 | — | |
| 2024 | 68 | — | |
| 2025 | 49 | -27.9% |
* Well below Fountain Hills'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 4 building fires Fountain Hills departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 40 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 | Cooking area, kitchen | 9 | 22.5% | |
| 2 | Engine area, running gear, wheel area | 7 | 17.5% | |
| 3 | Outside area, other | 7 | 17.5% | |
| 4 | Other | 3 | 7.5% | |
| 5 | Undetermined | 3 | 7.5% | |
| 6 | Vehicle storage area; garage, carport | 2 | 5.0% | |
| 7 | Open area - outside; included are farmland, field | 2 | 5.0% | |
| 8 | Closet | 1 | 2.5% | |
| 9 | Chute/container - trash, rubbish, waste | 1 | 2.5% | |
| 10 | Exterior balcony, unenclosed porch | 1 | 2.5% | |
| 11 | All other areas | 4 | 10.0% |
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 Fountain Hills mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Heat source: other | 10 | 25.0% | |
| 2 | Heat from powered equipment, other | 5 | 12.5% | |
| 3 | Undetermined | 5 | 12.5% | |
| 4 | Arcing | 4 | 10.0% | |
| 5 | Spark, ember or flame from operating equipment | 3 | 7.5% | |
| 6 | Radiated, conducted heat from operating equipment | 3 | 7.5% | |
| 7 | Heat from undetermined smoking material | 2 | 5.0% | |
| 8 | Hot or smoldering object, other | 1 | 2.5% | |
| 9 | Heat, spark from friction | 1 | 2.5% | |
| 10 | Hot ember or ash | 1 | 2.5% | |
| 11 | All other sources | 5 | 12.5% |
Largest single-incident property losses reported by Fountain Hills departments in 2025. These 5 fires alone account for 100% of the city's annual total.
| # | Property loss | Type | Severity | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $100,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 2 | $35,000 | Passenger vehicle fire | Significant | Investigated |
| 3 | $30,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 4 | $3,000 | Passenger vehicle fire | Significant | Investigated |
| 5 | $50 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Fountain Hills sits below the national average for incidents per resident.
63 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 | 6 | |
| 30-39 | 23 | |
| 40-49 | 19 | |
| 50-59 | 14 | |
| 60-69 | 1 | |
| 70-79 | 0 | |
| 80+ | 0 |
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 1,095,785 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | Natural | 248,310 | 26.1 mi | |
| 2020 | Equipment and vehicle use | 193,455 | 10.3 mi | |
| 2019 | Recreation and ceremony | 123,875 | 33.5 mi | |
| 2004 | Natural | 119,500 | 33.6 mi | |
| 2005 | Natural | 72,000 | 16.2 mi | |
| 1996 | Recreation and ceremony | 58,960 | 24.2 mi | |
| 2017 | Natural | 33,550 | 40.1 mi | |
| 2020 | Natural | 24,729 | 29.2 mi | |
| 1995 | Natural | 24,505 | 6.5 mi | |
| 1995 | Natural | 22,092 | 25.3 mi | |
| 2020 | Natural | 21,670 | 48.2 mi | |
| 2012 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 17,618 | 27.0 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 | 85268 | 127 |
Six Arizona cities with population within ±25% of Fountain Hills. Useful comparison targets — same state, similar size, different fire profile.
1 departments report to NFIRS for incidents in Fountain Hills.
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.