In 2025, fire departments serving Nyack responded to 26 fire and hazmat incidents — from cooking fires to gas leaks to a single $25K building blaze. Here's the full picture.
Building fires lead by count. Building fires lead by dollars. Together the top five categories make up about 81% of all calls.
Jan peaks. Aug dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
168 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2022. $25K cumulative property loss.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021* | 7 | — | |
| 2022 | 70 | — | |
| 2023 | 56 | -20.0% | |
| 2024* | 9 | — | |
| 2025 | 26 | — |
* Well below Nyack'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 8 building fires Nyack departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 24 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 | Cooking area, kitchen | 15 | 62.5% | |
| 2 | Outside area, other | 3 | 12.5% | |
| 3 | Bedroom - < 5 persons; included are jail or prison | 1 | 4.2% | |
| 4 | Laundry area, wash house (laundry) | 1 | 4.2% | |
| 5 | Surgery area - major operations, operating room | 1 | 4.2% | |
| 6 | Equipment or service area, other | 1 | 4.2% | |
| 7 | Wall surface: exterior | 1 | 4.2% | |
| 8 | Open area - outside; included are farmland, field | 1 | 4.2% |
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 Nyack mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Radiated, conducted heat from operating equipment | 19 | 79.2% | |
| 2 | Undetermined | 3 | 12.5% | |
| 3 | Arcing | 1 | 4.2% | |
| 4 | Hot or smoldering object, other | 1 | 4.2% |
Largest single-incident property losses reported by Nyack departments in 2025. These 1 fires alone account for 100% of the city's annual total.
| # | Property loss | Type | Severity | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $25,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Nyack sits below the national average for incidents per resident.
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 13,711 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | Debris and open burning | 2,759 | 45.1 mi | |
| 2016 | Arson/incendiarism | 2,028 | 46.2 mi | |
| 1999 | Smoking | 700 | 19.2 mi | |
| 2016 | Recreation and ceremony | 641 | 11.1 mi | |
| 2016 | Recreation and ceremony | 552 | 15.1 mi | |
| 2001 | Smoking | 550 | 44.5 mi | |
| 1994 | Smoking | 500 | 45.1 mi | |
| 2001 | Arson/incendiarism | 485 | 16.8 mi | |
| 2012 | Smoking | 481 | 13.9 mi | |
| 2010 | Firearms and explosives use | 475 | 47.2 mi | |
| 1999 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 468 | 19.2 mi | |
| 1999 | Recreation and ceremony | 410 | 12.6 mi |
Top 4 ZIP codes by NFIRS incident count across 2021–2025. Each ZIP has its own fire profile — dive in for neighborhood-level context.
Six New York cities with population within ±25% of Nyack. Useful comparison targets — same state, similar size, different fire profile.
1 departments report to NFIRS for incidents in Nyack.
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.