In 2025, fire departments serving Manchester responded to 30 fire and hazmat incidents . Here's the full picture.
Gas leak (natural gas or LPG) lead by count. Building fires lead by dollars. Together the top five categories make up about 77% of all calls.
Oct peaks. Apr dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
157 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2023.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021* | 8 | — | |
| 2022* | 8 | — | |
| 2023 | 61 | — | |
| 2024 | 50 | -18.0% | |
| 2025 | 30 | -40.0% |
* Well below Manchester'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 5 building fires Manchester departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Manchester sits below the national average for incidents per resident.
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 1,954 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 272 | 31.1 mi | |
| 1992 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 270 | 14.3 mi | |
| 2014 | Recreation and ceremony | 173 | 37.2 mi | |
| 2008 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 130 | 44.6 mi | |
| 1992 | Arson/incendiarism | 100 | 33.2 mi | |
| 2009 | Equipment and vehicle use | 83 | 15.8 mi | |
| 1995 | Debris and open burning | 75 | 23.9 mi | |
| 2004 | Debris and open burning | 73 | 41.3 mi | |
| 1999 | Arson/incendiarism | 65 | 46.8 mi | |
| 2014 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 62 | 33.4 mi | |
| 2018 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 60 | 29.4 mi | |
| 2008 | Debris and open burning | 55 | 13.2 mi |
Top 3 ZIP codes by NFIRS incident count across 2021–2025. Each ZIP has its own fire profile — dive in for neighborhood-level context.
Six Vermont cities with population within ±25% of Manchester. Useful comparison targets — same state, similar size, different fire profile.
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.