In 2025, fire departments serving Minden responded to 14 fire and hazmat incidents — from cooking fires to gas leaks to a single $350K building blaze. Here's the full picture.
Road freight or transport vehicle fire lead by count. Building fires lead by dollars. Together the top five categories make up about 78% of all calls.
Jul peaks. Mar dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
94 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2023. $1.1M cumulative property loss. 3 civilian deaths.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021* | 1 | — | |
| 2022 | 16 | — | |
| 2023 | 49 | +206.2% | |
| 2024 | 14 | -71.4% | |
| 2025 | 14 | +0.0% |
* Well below Minden'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 Minden departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 26 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 | 26.9% | |
| 2 | Engine area, running gear, wheel area | 6 | 23.1% | |
| 3 | Common room, den, family room, living room, lounge | 3 | 11.5% | |
| 4 | Attic: vacant, crawl space above top story, cupola | 3 | 11.5% | |
| 5 | Other | 2 | 7.7% | |
| 6 | Storage room, area, tank, or bin | 1 | 3.8% | |
| 7 | Conduit, pipe, utility, or ventilation shaft | 1 | 3.8% | |
| 8 | Wall surface: exterior | 1 | 3.8% | |
| 9 | Roof surface: exterior | 1 | 3.8% | |
| 10 | Open area - outside; included are farmland, field | 1 | 3.8% |
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 Minden mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Undetermined | 7 | 26.9% | |
| 2 | Spark, ember or flame from operating equipment | 5 | 19.2% | |
| 3 | Arcing | 5 | 19.2% | |
| 4 | Heat, spark from friction | 5 | 19.2% | |
| 5 | Heat from powered equipment, other | 2 | 7.7% | |
| 6 | Radiated, conducted heat from operating equipment | 1 | 3.8% | |
| 7 | Flying brand, ember, spark | 1 | 3.8% |
Largest single-incident property losses reported by Minden departments in 2025. These 2 fires alone account for 100% of the city's annual total.
| # | Property loss | Type | Severity | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $350,000 | Building fires | Major | Investigated |
| 2 | $100 | Road freight or transport vehicle fire | Significant | Investigated |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Minden sits above the national average for incidents per resident.
6 fire-related casualties recorded in NFIRS Module 11 across the 2021–2025 window. Age, gender, and severity are coarse-binned — no individual identification possible.
| Age | Count | |
|---|---|---|
| 0-9 | 0 | |
| 10-19 | 0 | |
| 20-29 | 0 | |
| 30-39 | 0 | |
| 40-49 | 6 | |
| 50-59 | 0 | |
| 60-69 | 0 | |
| 70-79 | 0 | |
| 80+ | 0 |
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 10,186 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 4,000 | 18.9 mi | |
| 2018 | Arson/incendiarism | 715 | 32.3 mi | |
| 2018 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 500 | 31.4 mi | |
| 2015 | Debris and open burning | 480 | 44.2 mi | |
| 2018 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 400 | 31.3 mi | |
| 2014 | Debris and open burning | 340 | 26.1 mi | |
| 2015 | Debris and open burning | 340 | 44.7 mi | |
| 2014 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 300 | 36.9 mi | |
| 2018 | Natural | 300 | 26.1 mi | |
| 2015 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 260 | 48.8 mi | |
| 2009 | Debris and open burning | 250 | 31.9 mi | |
| 2014 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 250 | 38.9 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 | 51553 | 94 |
Six Iowa cities with population within ±25% of Minden. 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.