In 2025, fire departments serving Magdalena responded to 14 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 78% of all calls.
Feb peaks. Mar dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
83 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2023. $36K cumulative property loss.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021* | 2 | — | |
| 2022 | 16 | — | |
| 2023 | 30 | +87.5% | |
| 2024 | 21 | -30.0% | |
| 2025 | 14 | -33.3% |
* Well below Magdalena'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 Magdalena departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 57 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 | 24 | 42.1% | |
| 2 | Highway, parking lot, street: on or near | 17 | 29.8% | |
| 3 | Open area - outside; included are farmland, field | 5 | 8.8% | |
| 4 | Engine area, running gear, wheel area | 3 | 5.3% | |
| 5 | Cooking area, kitchen | 2 | 3.5% | |
| 6 | Exterior stairway, ramp, or fire escape | 1 | 1.8% | |
| 7 | Common room, den, family room, living room, lounge | 1 | 1.8% | |
| 8 | Exterior balcony, unenclosed porch | 1 | 1.8% | |
| 9 | Attic: vacant, crawl space above top story, cupola | 1 | 1.8% | |
| 10 | Outside area, other | 1 | 1.8% | |
| 11 | All other areas | 1 | 1.8% |
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 Magdalena mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Undetermined | 46 | 80.7% | |
| 2 | Arcing | 4 | 7.0% | |
| 3 | Hot or smoldering object, other | 4 | 7.0% | |
| 4 | Spark, ember or flame from operating equipment | 1 | 1.8% | |
| 5 | Heat, spark from friction | 1 | 1.8% | |
| 6 | Heat from undetermined smoking material | 1 | 1.8% |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Magdalena sits above the national average for incidents per resident.
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 217,341 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | Natural | 42,102 | 24.8 mi | |
| 1994 | Natural | 22,200 | 31.1 mi | |
| 2015 | Natural | 17,843 | 27.6 mi | |
| 1994 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 17,000 | 29.1 mi | |
| 1993 | Natural | 14,700 | 44.0 mi | |
| 2020 | Natural | 14,624 | 39.2 mi | |
| 1994 | Natural | 11,500 | 45.9 mi | |
| 1993 | Natural | 9,000 | 48.1 mi | |
| 2017 | Natural | 8,364 | 33.2 mi | |
| 2009 | Natural | 7,836 | 33.7 mi | |
| 1994 | Natural | 6,000 | 29.1 mi | |
| 1996 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 5,975 | 27.2 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 | 87825 | 83 |
Six New Mexico cities with population within ±25% of Magdalena. Useful comparison targets — same state, similar size, different fire profile.
2 departments report to NFIRS for incidents in Magdalena.
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.