In 2025, fire departments serving Gadsden responded to 392 fire and hazmat incidents — from cooking fires to gas leaks to a single $450K building blaze. Here's the full picture.
Building fires lead by count. Building fires lead by dollars. Together the top five categories make up about 64% of all calls.
Mar peaks. Aug dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
1,777 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2023. $12.9M cumulative property loss. 5 civilian deaths.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021* | 21 | — | |
| 2022 | 336 | — | |
| 2023 | 548 | +63.1% | |
| 2024 | 480 | -12.4% | |
| 2025 | 392 | -18.3% |
* Well below Gadsden'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 86 building fires Gadsden departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 856 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 | 278 | 32.5% | |
| 2 | Open area - outside; included are farmland, field | 80 | 9.3% | |
| 3 | Outside area, other | 72 | 8.4% | |
| 4 | Engine area, running gear, wheel area | 62 | 7.2% | |
| 5 | Other | 58 | 6.8% | |
| 6 | Bedroom - < 5 persons; included are jail or prison | 34 | 4.0% | |
| 7 | Cooking area, kitchen | 31 | 3.6% | |
| 8 | Common room, den, family room, living room, lounge | 22 | 2.6% | |
| 9 | Wildland, woods | 22 | 2.6% | |
| 10 | Highway, parking lot, street: on or near | 16 | 1.9% | |
| 11 | All other areas | 181 | 21.1% |
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 Gadsden mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Undetermined | 514 | 60.0% | |
| 2 | Hot or smoldering object, other | 45 | 5.3% | |
| 3 | Hot ember or ash | 45 | 5.3% | |
| 4 | Cigarette lighter | 44 | 5.1% | |
| 5 | Arcing | 41 | 4.8% | |
| 6 | Heat from powered equipment, other | 25 | 2.9% | |
| 7 | Heat source: other | 24 | 2.8% | |
| 8 | Radiated, conducted heat from operating equipment | 19 | 2.2% | |
| 9 | Spark, ember or flame from operating equipment | 18 | 2.1% | |
| 10 | Match | 12 | 1.4% | |
| 11 | All other sources | 69 | 8.1% |
Largest single-incident property losses reported by Gadsden departments in 2025. These 8 fires alone account for 43% of the city's annual total.
| # | Property loss | Type | Severity | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $450,000 | Building fires | Major | Investigated |
| 2 | $285,000 | Building fires | Major | Investigated |
| 3 | $250,000 | Building fires | Major | Investigated |
| 4 | $150,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 5 | $110,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 6 | $100,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 7 | $100,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 8 | $100,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Gadsden sits above the national average for incidents per resident.
11 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 | 1 | |
| 30-39 | 1 | |
| 40-49 | 0 | |
| 50-59 | 1 | |
| 60-69 | 1 | |
| 70-79 | 2 | |
| 80+ | 0 |
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 34,044 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1995 | Arson/incendiarism | 3,321 | 35.3 mi | |
| 1998 | Arson/incendiarism | 3,108 | 43.0 mi | |
| 2007 | Debris and open burning | 3,000 | 19.5 mi | |
| 2014 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2,500 | 22.8 mi | |
| 2016 | Arson/incendiarism | 2,229 | 38.5 mi | |
| 2014 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2,000 | 34.7 mi | |
| 2000 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1,636 | 16.4 mi | |
| 1996 | Recreation and ceremony | 1,540 | 45.4 mi | |
| 2006 | Misuse of fire by a minor | 1,448 | 38.6 mi | |
| 2016 | Arson/incendiarism | 1,350 | 36.9 mi | |
| 1996 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1,078 | 24.7 mi | |
| 2016 | Arson/incendiarism | 988 | 44.3 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 Alabama cities with population within ±25% of Gadsden. Useful comparison targets — same state, similar size, different fire profile.
1 departments report to NFIRS for incidents in Gadsden.
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.