In 2025, fire departments serving Long Beach responded to 24 fire and hazmat incidents . Here's the full picture.
Electrical wiring/equipment problem, other lead by count. Building fires lead by dollars. Together the top five categories make up about 83% of all calls.
Jun peaks. Feb dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
59 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2023.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021* | 0 | — | |
| 2022* | 2 | — | |
| 2023 | 29 | — | |
| 2024* | 4 | — | |
| 2025 | 24 | — |
* Well below Long Beach'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 2 building fires Long Beach departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 8 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 | 2 | 25.0% | |
| 2 | Other | 1 | 12.5% | |
| 3 | Function area, other | 1 | 12.5% | |
| 4 | Service facilities, other | 1 | 12.5% | |
| 5 | Structural area, other | 1 | 12.5% | |
| 6 | Ceiling & floor assembly, crawl space b/t stories | 1 | 12.5% | |
| 7 | Highway, parking lot, street: on or near | 1 | 12.5% |
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 Long Beach mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Heat source: other | 4 | 50.0% | |
| 2 | Hot or smoldering object, other | 2 | 25.0% | |
| 3 | Candle | 1 | 12.5% | |
| 4 | Undetermined | 1 | 12.5% |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Long Beach sits above the national average for incidents per resident.
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 4,590 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2002 | Railroad operations and maintenance | 396 | 24.2 mi | |
| 1993 | Railroad operations and maintenance | 341 | 24.1 mi | |
| 2012 | Railroad operations and maintenance | 291 | 24.8 mi | |
| 2019 | Railroad operations and maintenance | 274 | 22.8 mi | |
| 1995 | Debris and open burning | 253 | 25.8 mi | |
| 1996 | Railroad operations and maintenance | 244 | 24.3 mi | |
| 2019 | Railroad operations and maintenance | 216 | 24.1 mi | |
| 2003 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 204 | 25.2 mi | |
| 1994 | Railroad operations and maintenance | 191 | 23.8 mi | |
| 1994 | Railroad operations and maintenance | 190 | 25.8 mi | |
| 2003 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 187 | 24.9 mi | |
| 2016 | Railroad operations and maintenance | 182 | 21.8 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 | 46360 | 59 |
Six Indiana cities with population within ±25% of Long Beach. Useful comparison targets — same state, similar size, different fire profile.
1 departments report to NFIRS for incidents in Long Beach.
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.