In 2025, fire departments serving Garden City responded to 224 fire and hazmat incidents . Here's the full picture.
Cooking fire, confined to container lead by count. Building fires lead by dollars. Together the top five categories make up about 74% of all calls.
Apr peaks. Nov dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
1,095 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2024.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021* | 55 | — | |
| 2022 | 193 | — | |
| 2023 | 243 | +25.9% | |
| 2024 | 380 | +56.4% | |
| 2025 | 224 | -41.1% |
* Well below Garden City'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 2 building fires Garden City departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 6 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 | Laundry area, wash house (laundry) | 2 | 33.3% | |
| 2 | Assembly area - less than 100 persons | 1 | 16.7% | |
| 3 | Function area, other | 1 | 16.7% | |
| 4 | Storage area, other | 1 | 16.7% | |
| 5 | Outside area, other | 1 | 16.7% |
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 Garden City mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Undetermined | 3 | 50.0% | |
| 2 | Heat from powered equipment, other | 1 | 16.7% | |
| 3 | Arcing | 1 | 16.7% | |
| 4 | Heat, spark from friction | 1 | 16.7% |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Garden City sits above the national average for incidents per resident.
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 9,539 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1995 | Equipment and vehicle use | 1,000 | 37.0 mi | |
| 2012 | Arson/incendiarism | 992 | 43.5 mi | |
| 1999 | Smoking | 700 | 47.7 mi | |
| 2016 | Recreation and ceremony | 641 | 38.9 mi | |
| 2016 | Recreation and ceremony | 552 | 43.2 mi | |
| 2001 | Arson/incendiarism | 485 | 44.6 mi | |
| 2012 | Smoking | 481 | 42.7 mi | |
| 2010 | Firearms and explosives use | 475 | 39.8 mi | |
| 1999 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 468 | 47.7 mi | |
| 2006 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 450 | 42.2 mi | |
| 1999 | Recreation and ceremony | 410 | 41.5 mi | |
| 2013 | Recreation and ceremony | 363 | 27.3 mi |
Top 7 ZIP codes by NFIRS incident count across 2021–2025. Each ZIP has its own fire profile — dive in for neighborhood-level context.
Six New York cities with population within ±25% of Garden City. Useful comparison targets — same state, similar size, different fire profile.
1 departments report to NFIRS for incidents in Garden City.
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.