In 2025, fire departments serving Milford responded to 14 fire and hazmat incidents . Here's the full picture.
Chemical spill or leak lead by count. Building fires lead by dollars. Together the top five categories make up about 71% of all calls.
Mar peaks. Feb dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
73 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2023. $265K cumulative property loss.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021* | 6 | — | |
| 2022 | 10 | — | |
| 2023 | 31 | +210.0% | |
| 2024 | 12 | -61.3% | |
| 2025 | 14 | +16.7% |
* Well below Milford'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 Milford departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 15 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 | 7 | 46.7% | |
| 2 | Engine area, running gear, wheel area | 3 | 20.0% | |
| 3 | Vehicle storage area; garage, carport | 2 | 13.3% | |
| 4 | Entrance way, lobby | 1 | 6.7% | |
| 5 | Attic: vacant, crawl space above top story, cupola | 1 | 6.7% | |
| 6 | Roof surface: exterior | 1 | 6.7% |
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 Milford mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Undetermined | 11 | 73.3% | |
| 2 | Heat from powered equipment, other | 2 | 13.3% | |
| 3 | Spark, ember or flame from operating equipment | 1 | 6.7% | |
| 4 | Heat, spark from friction | 1 | 6.7% |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Milford sits above the national average for incidents per resident.
Top 5 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 97 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2002 | Recreation and ceremony | 35 | 43.4 mi | |
| 2004 | Debris and open burning | 20 | 43.3 mi | |
| 2002 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 15 | 27.1 mi | |
| 2018 | Equipment and vehicle use | 15 | 29.8 mi | |
| 2017 | Arson/incendiarism | 12 | 26.0 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 | 46542 | 73 |
Six Indiana cities with population within ±25% of Milford. Useful comparison targets — same state, similar size, different fire profile.
1 departments report to NFIRS for incidents in Milford.
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.