In 2025, fire departments serving Old Greenwich responded to 42 fire and hazmat incidents — from cooking fires to gas leaks to a single $1.0M building blaze. Here's the full picture.
Power line down lead by count. Building fires lead by dollars. Together the top five categories make up about 69% of all calls.
Feb peaks. Dec dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
110 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2025. $1.0M cumulative property loss.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021* | 11 | — | |
| 2022 | 26 | — | |
| 2023 | 25 | -3.8% | |
| 2024* | 6 | — | |
| 2025 | 42 | — |
* Well below Old Greenwich'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 Old Greenwich 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 | Open area - outside; included are farmland, field | 2 | 66.7% | |
| 2 | Highway, parking lot, street: on or near | 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 Old Greenwich mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Undetermined | 2 | 66.7% | |
| 2 | Flame/torch used for lighting | 1 | 33.3% |
Largest single-incident property losses reported by Old Greenwich departments in 2025. These 1 fires alone account for 100% of the city's annual total.
| # | Property loss | Type | Severity | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $1,000,000 | Building fires | Major | Investigated |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Old Greenwich sits below the national average for incidents per resident.
10 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 | 4 | |
| 30-39 | 1 | |
| 40-49 | 2 | |
| 50-59 | 3 | |
| 60-69 | 0 | |
| 70-79 | 0 | |
| 80+ | 0 |
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 14,653 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1995 | Arson/incendiarism | 5,050 | 45.3 mi | |
| 1995 | Equipment and vehicle use | 1,000 | 34.9 mi | |
| 2012 | Arson/incendiarism | 992 | 39.4 mi | |
| 1999 | Smoking | 700 | 32.5 mi | |
| 2016 | Recreation and ceremony | 641 | 29.4 mi | |
| 2016 | Recreation and ceremony | 552 | 32.9 mi | |
| 2001 | Smoking | 550 | 45.5 mi | |
| 2001 | Arson/incendiarism | 485 | 34.7 mi | |
| 2012 | Smoking | 481 | 29.1 mi | |
| 1999 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 468 | 32.5 mi | |
| 1999 | Recreation and ceremony | 410 | 28.1 mi | |
| 2013 | Recreation and ceremony | 363 | 19.4 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 | 06870 | 110 |
Six Connecticut cities with population within ±25% of Old Greenwich. 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.