In 2025, fire departments serving Germantown responded to 20 fire and hazmat incidents . Here's the full picture.
Brush, or brush and grass mixture fire lead by count. Building fires lead by dollars. Together the top five categories make up about 70% of all calls.
Jan peaks. Feb dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
91 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2023.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 21 | — | |
| 2022 | 17 | -19.0% | |
| 2023 | 28 | +64.7% | |
| 2024* | 5 | — | |
| 2025 | 20 | — |
* Well below Germantown'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 Germantown departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 3 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 | Storage room, area, tank, or bin | 1 | 33.3% | |
| 2 | Vehicle area, other | 1 | 33.3% | |
| 3 | Wildland, woods | 1 | 33.3% |
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 Germantown mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Undetermined | 3 | 100.0% |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Germantown sits above the national average for incidents per resident.
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 14,863 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | Smoking | 2,855 | 28.9 mi | |
| 2015 | Debris and open burning | 2,759 | 46.2 mi | |
| 2016 | Arson/incendiarism | 2,028 | 40.1 mi | |
| 2008 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1,300 | 47.5 mi | |
| 2006 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 998 | 28.9 mi | |
| 2001 | Smoking | 866 | 30.5 mi | |
| 2001 | Smoking | 550 | 34.7 mi | |
| 2002 | Natural | 388 | 49.5 mi | |
| 2016 | Natural | 384 | 36.7 mi | |
| 2009 | Arson/incendiarism | 300 | 48.6 mi | |
| 2001 | Recreation and ceremony | 285 | 34.9 mi | |
| 2020 | Railroad operations and maintenance | 277 | 48.0 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 | 12526 | 91 |
Six New York cities with population within ±25% of Germantown. Useful comparison targets — same state, similar size, different fire profile.
2 departments report to NFIRS for incidents in Germantown.
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.