In 2025, fire departments serving Lena responded to 21 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 62% of all calls.
Mar peaks. Jan dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
98 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2022. $26K cumulative property loss.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021* | 5 | — | |
| 2022 | 28 | — | |
| 2023 | 18 | -35.7% | |
| 2024 | 26 | +44.4% | |
| 2025 | 21 | -19.2% |
* Well below Lena'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 1 building fires Lena departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 26 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 | 16 | 61.5% | |
| 2 | Other | 2 | 7.7% | |
| 3 | Function area, other | 1 | 3.8% | |
| 4 | Bathroom, checkroom, lavatory, locker room | 1 | 3.8% | |
| 5 | Storage room, area, tank, or bin | 1 | 3.8% | |
| 6 | Substructure area or space, crawl space | 1 | 3.8% | |
| 7 | Wall surface: exterior | 1 | 3.8% | |
| 8 | Outside area, other | 1 | 3.8% | |
| 9 | Highway, parking lot, street: on or near | 1 | 3.8% | |
| 10 | Open area - outside; included are farmland, field | 1 | 3.8% |
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 Lena mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Undetermined | 17 | 65.4% | |
| 2 | Spark, ember or flame from operating equipment | 3 | 11.5% | |
| 3 | Arcing | 3 | 11.5% | |
| 4 | Heat from powered equipment, other | 1 | 3.8% | |
| 5 | Cigarette | 1 | 3.8% | |
| 6 | Flying brand, ember, spark | 1 | 3.8% |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Lena sits above the national average for incidents per resident.
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 1,951 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2007 | Arson/incendiarism | 275 | 20.6 mi | |
| 2004 | Debris and open burning | 215 | 10.1 mi | |
| 2015 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 133 | 22.8 mi | |
| 2014 | Natural | 110 | 28.8 mi | |
| 2015 | Arson/incendiarism | 103 | 22.1 mi | |
| 1999 | Smoking | 100 | 40.7 mi | |
| 2007 | Arson/incendiarism | 94 | 43.6 mi | |
| 1998 | Debris and open burning | 88 | 47.7 mi | |
| 2005 | Debris and open burning | 75 | 22.4 mi | |
| 2001 | Other causes | 73 | 34.3 mi | |
| 1999 | Recreation and ceremony | 65 | 31.4 mi | |
| 1999 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 64 | 33.1 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 Wisconsin cities with population within ±25% of Lena. Useful comparison targets — same state, similar size, different fire profile.
1 departments report to NFIRS for incidents in Lena.
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.