Senators Warn Federal Firefighting Budget Nearly Exhausted With Fire Season Not Over
Five senators told Interior and USDA the $6 billion FY2026 fire suppression budget was nearly spent by Sept. 2, citing staffing gaps and firefighter deaths.
CACOOR
In 2025, fire departments serving Hermiston responded to 328 fire and hazmat incidents — from cooking fires to gas leaks to a single $258K building blaze. 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 46% of all calls.
Jun peaks. Jan dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
1,341 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2023. $9.6M cumulative property loss.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 183 | — | |
| 2022* | 157 | — | |
| 2023 | 352 | — | |
| 2024 | 321 | -8.8% | |
| 2025 | 328 | +2.2% |
* Well below Hermiston'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 22 building fires Hermiston departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 509 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 | Outside area, other | 100 | 19.6% | |
| 2 | Open area - outside; included are farmland, field | 69 | 13.6% | |
| 3 | Engine area, running gear, wheel area | 59 | 11.6% | |
| 4 | Undetermined | 49 | 9.6% | |
| 5 | Cooking area, kitchen | 32 | 6.3% | |
| 6 | Highway, parking lot, street: on or near | 21 | 4.1% | |
| 7 | Wall surface: exterior | 17 | 3.3% | |
| 8 | Vehicle storage area; garage, carport | 14 | 2.8% | |
| 9 | Cargo/trunk area - all vehicles | 12 | 2.4% | |
| 10 | Exterior, exposed surface | 12 | 2.4% | |
| 11 | All other areas | 124 | 24.4% |
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 Hermiston mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Undetermined | 170 | 33.4% | |
| 2 | Radiated, conducted heat from operating equipment | 43 | 8.4% | |
| 3 | Heat from powered equipment, other | 36 | 7.1% | |
| 4 | Hot ember or ash | 33 | 6.5% | |
| 5 | Hot or smoldering object, other | 24 | 4.7% | |
| 6 | Arcing | 23 | 4.5% | |
| 7 | Heat from direct flame, convection currents | 20 | 3.9% | |
| 8 | Heat source: other | 19 | 3.7% | |
| 9 | Flame/torch used for lighting | 17 | 3.3% | |
| 10 | Match | 16 | 3.1% | |
| 11 | All other sources | 108 | 21.2% |
Largest single-incident property losses reported by Hermiston departments in 2025. These 8 fires alone account for 81% of the city's annual total.
| # | Property loss | Type | Severity | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $258,000 | Building fires | Major | Investigated |
| 2 | $200,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 3 | $150,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 4 | $145,000 | Road freight or transport vehicle fire | Significant | Investigated |
| 5 | $50,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 6 | $50,000 | Road freight or transport vehicle fire | Significant | Investigated |
| 7 | $45,000 | Garbage dump or sanitary landfill fire | Significant | Investigated |
| 8 | $37,500 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Hermiston sits above the national average for incidents per resident.
9 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 | 1 | |
| 20-29 | 1 | |
| 30-39 | 1 | |
| 40-49 | 2 | |
| 50-59 | 0 | |
| 60-69 | 4 | |
| 70-79 | 0 | |
| 80+ | 0 |
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 293,218 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | Natural | 78,000 | 26.1 mi | |
| 2007 | Natural | 20,947 | 39.2 mi | |
| 2000 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 19,650 | 48.7 mi | |
| 2018 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 12,765 | 37.5 mi | |
| 2020 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 12,756 | 32.4 mi | |
| 2018 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 12,377 | 16.9 mi | |
| 2000 | Natural | 11,300 | 36.0 mi | |
| 2017 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 10,408 | 41.4 mi | |
| 2001 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 9,929 | 20.8 mi | |
| 2017 | Equipment and vehicle use | 9,357 | 41.7 mi | |
| 2015 | Equipment and vehicle use | 8,988 | 17.2 mi | |
| 1996 | Equipment and vehicle use | 8,480 | 42.0 mi |
Top 6 ZIP codes by NFIRS incident count across 2021–2025. Each ZIP has its own fire profile — dive in for neighborhood-level context.
Six Oregon cities with population within ±25% of Hermiston. Useful comparison targets — same state, similar size, different fire profile.
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.