In 2025, fire departments serving New Haven responded to 22 fire and hazmat incidents — from cooking fires to gas leaks to a single $500 building blaze. Here's the full picture.
Carbon monoxide incident lead by count. Building fires lead by dollars. Together the top five categories make up about 77% of all calls.
Apr peaks. Mar dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
73 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2024. $3K cumulative property loss.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021* | 3 | — | |
| 2022 | 10 | — | |
| 2023* | 7 | — | |
| 2024 | 31 | — | |
| 2025 | 22 | -29.0% |
* Well below New Haven'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 New Haven departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 3 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 | Interior stairway or ramp | 1 | 33.3% | |
| 2 | Open area - outside; included are farmland, field | 1 | 33.3% | |
| 3 | Wildland, woods | 1 | 33.3% |
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 New Haven mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cigarette | 2 | 66.7% | |
| 2 | Undetermined | 1 | 33.3% |
Largest single-incident property losses reported by New Haven departments in 2025. These 1 fires alone account for 100% of the city's annual total.
| # | Property loss | Type | Severity | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $500 | Fire in mobile prop. used as a fixed struc., other | Significant | Investigated |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. New Haven sits above the national average for incidents per resident.
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 2,128 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | Railroad operations and maintenance | 330 | 38.5 mi | |
| 2015 | Power generation/transmission/distribution | 137 | 45.8 mi | |
| 2015 | Recreation and ceremony | 121 | 29.4 mi | |
| 2012 | Debris and open burning | 120 | 43.3 mi | |
| 1994 | Recreation and ceremony | 117 | 34.7 mi | |
| 1994 | Smoking | 106 | 42.3 mi | |
| 2009 | Natural | 95 | 46.1 mi | |
| 1999 | Recreation and ceremony | 92 | 32.5 mi | |
| 2001 | Arson/incendiarism | 82 | 20.7 mi | |
| 2001 | Natural | 80 | 28.8 mi | |
| 2001 | Railroad operations and maintenance | 77 | 38.5 mi | |
| 1994 | Smoking | 75 | 22.9 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 | 05472 | 73 |
Six Vermont cities with population within ±25% of New Haven. 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.