In 2025, fire departments serving Hoboken responded to 748 fire and hazmat incidents . 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 76% of all calls.
Jun peaks. Dec dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
2,180 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2024. $67.8M cumulative property loss. 2 civilian deaths.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021* | 218 | — | |
| 2022 | 272 | — | |
| 2023* | 188 | — | |
| 2024 | 754 | — | |
| 2025 | 748 | -0.8% |
* Well below Hoboken'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 3 building fires Hoboken departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 100 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 | 20 | 20.0% | |
| 2 | Cooking area, kitchen | 16 | 16.0% | |
| 3 | Other | 10 | 10.0% | |
| 4 | Undetermined | 6 | 6.0% | |
| 5 | Bathroom, checkroom, lavatory, locker room | 5 | 5.0% | |
| 6 | Laundry area, wash house (laundry) | 4 | 4.0% | |
| 7 | Bedroom - < 5 persons; included are jail or prison | 3 | 3.0% | |
| 8 | Engine area, running gear, wheel area | 3 | 3.0% | |
| 9 | Assembly or sales area, other | 2 | 2.0% | |
| 10 | Arena, assembly area w/ fixed seats - 100+ persons | 2 | 2.0% | |
| 11 | All other areas | 29 | 29.0% |
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 Hoboken mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Undetermined | 35 | 35.0% | |
| 2 | Heat from powered equipment, other | 17 | 17.0% | |
| 3 | Hot or smoldering object, other | 16 | 16.0% | |
| 4 | Cigarette | 9 | 9.0% | |
| 5 | Spark, ember or flame from operating equipment | 4 | 4.0% | |
| 6 | Arcing | 4 | 4.0% | |
| 7 | Radiated, conducted heat from operating equipment | 3 | 3.0% | |
| 8 | Heat from other open flame or smoking materials | 3 | 3.0% | |
| 9 | Candle | 3 | 3.0% | |
| 10 | Hot ember or ash | 2 | 2.0% | |
| 11 | All other sources | 4 | 4.0% |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Hoboken sits above the national average for incidents per resident.
7 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 | 0 | |
| 30-39 | 1 | |
| 40-49 | 3 | |
| 50-59 | 0 | |
| 60-69 | 0 | |
| 70-79 | 0 | |
| 80+ | 0 |
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 8,547 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1999 | Smoking | 700 | 42.5 mi | |
| 2016 | Recreation and ceremony | 641 | 29.8 mi | |
| 2016 | Recreation and ceremony | 552 | 33.9 mi | |
| 1994 | Smoking | 500 | 49.4 mi | |
| 2001 | Arson/incendiarism | 485 | 34.4 mi | |
| 2012 | Smoking | 481 | 36.7 mi | |
| 2010 | Firearms and explosives use | 475 | 24.0 mi | |
| 1999 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 468 | 42.5 mi | |
| 2006 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 450 | 32.5 mi | |
| 1999 | Recreation and ceremony | 410 | 35.5 mi | |
| 2013 | Recreation and ceremony | 363 | 21.7 mi | |
| 1997 | Arson/incendiarism | 350 | 19.7 mi |
Top 4 ZIP codes by NFIRS incident count across 2021–2025. Each ZIP has its own fire profile — dive in for neighborhood-level context.
Six New Jersey cities with population within ±25% of Hoboken. Useful comparison targets — same state, similar size, different fire profile.
1 departments report to NFIRS for incidents in Hoboken.
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.