In 2025, fire departments serving Madison responded to 12 fire and hazmat incidents . Here's the full picture.
Power line down lead by count. Building fires lead by dollars. Together the top five categories make up about 100% of all calls.
Feb peaks. Jan dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
45 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2022.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021* | 2 | — | |
| 2022 | 16 | — | |
| 2023 | 7 | -56.2% | |
| 2024 | 8 | +14.3% | |
| 2025 | 12 | +50.0% |
* Well below Madison'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 4 building fires Madison departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Madison sits below the national average for incidents per resident.
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 904 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | Equipment and vehicle use | 100 | 26.7 mi | |
| 2007 | Natural | 65 | 23.9 mi | |
| 2003 | Arson/incendiarism | 49 | 42.3 mi | |
| 2001 | Recreation and ceremony | 47 | 43.5 mi | |
| 1995 | Debris and open burning | 45 | 35.4 mi | |
| 1999 | Debris and open burning | 40 | 41.4 mi | |
| 1999 | Natural | 40 | 47.0 mi | |
| 2016 | Power generation/transmission/distribution | 39 | 47.4 mi | |
| 1993 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 38 | 45.8 mi | |
| 1999 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 35 | 46.4 mi | |
| 2014 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 34 | 45.9 mi | |
| 2010 | Debris and open burning | 31 | 43.3 mi |
Top 2 ZIP codes by NFIRS incident count across 2021–2025. Each ZIP has its own fire profile — dive in for neighborhood-level context.
Six New York cities with population within ±25% of Madison. Useful comparison targets — same state, similar size, different fire profile.
1 departments report to NFIRS for incidents in Madison.
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.