In 2025, fire departments serving Moses Lake responded to 553 fire and hazmat incidents — from cooking fires to gas leaks to a single $200K building blaze. Here's the full picture.
Outside rubbish fire, other lead by count. Building fires lead by dollars. Together the top five categories make up about 54% of all calls.
Jul peaks. Mar dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
2,104 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2025. $2.9M cumulative property loss. 6 civilian deaths.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 448 | — | |
| 2022 | 511 | +14.1% | |
| 2023 | 477 | -6.7% | |
| 2024* | 115 | — | |
| 2025 | 553 | — |
* Well below Moses Lake'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 39 building fires Moses Lake departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 882 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 | 202 | 22.9% | |
| 2 | Open area - outside; included are farmland, field | 196 | 22.2% | |
| 3 | Outside area, other | 95 | 10.8% | |
| 4 | Engine area, running gear, wheel area | 81 | 9.2% | |
| 5 | Highway, parking lot, street: on or near | 32 | 3.6% | |
| 6 | Other | 28 | 3.2% | |
| 7 | Courtyard, patio, porch, terrace | 25 | 2.8% | |
| 8 | Cooking area, kitchen | 21 | 2.4% | |
| 9 | Operator/passenger area of transportation equip. | 19 | 2.2% | |
| 10 | Vehicle area, other | 16 | 1.8% | |
| 11 | All other areas | 167 | 18.9% |
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 Moses Lake mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Undetermined | 527 | 59.8% | |
| 2 | Cigarette lighter | 50 | 5.7% | |
| 3 | Flame/torch used for lighting | 45 | 5.1% | |
| 4 | Radiated, conducted heat from operating equipment | 40 | 4.5% | |
| 5 | Arcing | 38 | 4.3% | |
| 6 | Hot or smoldering object, other | 26 | 2.9% | |
| 7 | Heat from other open flame or smoking materials | 22 | 2.5% | |
| 8 | Heat from powered equipment, other | 20 | 2.3% | |
| 9 | Spark, ember or flame from operating equipment | 18 | 2.0% | |
| 10 | Hot ember or ash | 18 | 2.0% | |
| 11 | All other sources | 78 | 8.8% |
Largest single-incident property losses reported by Moses Lake departments in 2025. These 8 fires alone account for 81% of the city's annual total.
| # | Property loss | Type | Severity | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $200,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 2 | $65,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 3 | $40,000 | Road freight or transport vehicle fire | Significant | Investigated |
| 4 | $20,000 | Passenger vehicle fire | Significant | Investigated |
| 5 | $15,000 | Passenger vehicle fire | Significant | Investigated |
| 6 | $10,000 | Passenger vehicle fire | Significant | Investigated |
| 7 | $10,000 | Brush, or brush and grass mixture fire | Significant | Investigated |
| 8 | $10,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Moses Lake sits above the national average for incidents per resident.
14 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 | 2 | |
| 30-39 | 1 | |
| 40-49 | 1 | |
| 50-59 | 1 | |
| 60-69 | 2 | |
| 70-79 | 3 | |
| 80+ | 4 |
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 805,061 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | Equipment and vehicle use | 163,884 | 45.0 mi | |
| 2013 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 80,053 | 41.4 mi | |
| 2018 | Equipment and vehicle use | 76,817 | 49.3 mi | |
| 1996 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 57,520 | 47.4 mi | |
| 2019 | Recreation and ceremony | 41,748 | 44.8 mi | |
| 2017 | Natural | 37,266 | 37.0 mi | |
| 2017 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 30,648 | 49.7 mi | |
| 2014 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 25,000 | 38.6 mi | |
| 2017 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 24,650 | 44.2 mi | |
| 2012 | Natural | 23,324 | 41.3 mi | |
| 2019 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 22,672 | 34.3 mi | |
| 2018 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 22,316 | 39.5 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 Washington cities with population within ±25% of Moses Lake. 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.