In 2025, fire departments serving Indianapolis responded to 6,087 fire and hazmat incidents — from cooking fires to gas leaks to a single $9.0M building blaze. Here's the full picture.
Power line down lead by count. Building fires lead by dollars. Together the top five categories make up about 48% of all calls.
Jun peaks. Sep dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
28,625 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2023. $181.6M cumulative property loss. 9 civilian deaths.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 5,443 | — | |
| 2022* | 3,016 | — | |
| 2023 | 7,149 | — | |
| 2024 | 6,930 | -3.1% | |
| 2025 | 6,087 | -12.2% |
* Well below Indianapolis'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 734 building fires Indianapolis departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 8,341 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 | 2,180 | 26.1% | |
| 2 | Engine area, running gear, wheel area | 894 | 10.7% | |
| 3 | Outside area, other | 777 | 9.3% | |
| 4 | Other | 664 | 8.0% | |
| 5 | Cooking area, kitchen | 451 | 5.4% | |
| 6 | Open area - outside; included are farmland, field | 375 | 4.5% | |
| 7 | Vehicle storage area; garage, carport | 248 | 3.0% | |
| 8 | Bedroom - < 5 persons; included are jail or prison | 227 | 2.7% | |
| 9 | Function area, other | 175 | 2.1% | |
| 10 | Operator/passenger area of transportation equip. | 174 | 2.1% | |
| 11 | All other areas | 2,176 | 26.1% |
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 Indianapolis mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Undetermined | 4,758 | 57.0% | |
| 2 | Hot or smoldering object, other | 534 | 6.4% | |
| 3 | Heat from powered equipment, other | 513 | 6.2% | |
| 4 | Arcing | 463 | 5.6% | |
| 5 | Heat source: other | 413 | 5.0% | |
| 6 | Hot ember or ash | 228 | 2.7% | |
| 7 | Cigarette lighter | 220 | 2.6% | |
| 8 | Radiated, conducted heat from operating equipment | 210 | 2.5% | |
| 9 | Heat from other open flame or smoking materials | 190 | 2.3% | |
| 10 | Spark, ember or flame from operating equipment | 117 | 1.4% | |
| 11 | All other sources | 695 | 8.3% |
Largest single-incident property losses reported by Indianapolis departments in 2025. These 8 fires alone account for 38% of the city's annual total.
| # | Property loss | Type | Severity | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $9,000,000 | Building fires | Catastrophic | Investigated |
| 2 | $3,000,000 | Building fires | Major | Investigated |
| 3 | $1,000,000 | Building fires | Major | Investigated |
| 4 | $832,420 | Building fires | Major | Investigated |
| 5 | $720,000 | Building fires | Major | Investigated |
| 6 | $693,100 | Building fires | Major | Investigated |
| 7 | $651,000 | Building fires | Major | Investigated |
| 8 | $603,322 | Building fires | Major | Investigated |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Indianapolis sits below the national average for incidents per resident.
101 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 | 3 | |
| 10-19 | 2 | |
| 20-29 | 15 | |
| 30-39 | 24 | |
| 40-49 | 34 | |
| 50-59 | 13 | |
| 60-69 | 7 | |
| 70-79 | 1 | |
| 80+ | 2 |
Top 10 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 2,014 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2007 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1,549 | 31.0 mi | |
| 2007 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 165 | 35.3 mi | |
| 2007 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 156 | 35.1 mi | |
| 1999 | Recreation and ceremony | 37 | 48.7 mi | |
| 2012 | Equipment and vehicle use | 35 | 49.4 mi | |
| 1998 | Debris and open burning | 22 | 48.1 mi | |
| 2017 | Debris and open burning | 17 | 49.0 mi | |
| 2016 | Recreation and ceremony | 13 | 49.1 mi | |
| 2016 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 10 | 46.4 mi | |
| 2005 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 10 | 37.6 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.
5 departments report to NFIRS for incidents in Indianapolis.
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.