In 2025, fire departments serving City of Orange responded to 370 fire and hazmat incidents . Here's the full picture.
Gas leak (natural gas or LPG) lead by count. Building fires lead by dollars. Together the top five categories make up about 64% of all calls.
Dec peaks. May dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
1,384 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2024. $12K cumulative property loss.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 225 | — | |
| 2022 | 367 | +63.1% | |
| 2023* | 32 | — | |
| 2024 | 390 | — | |
| 2025 | 370 | -5.1% |
* Well below City of Orange'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 35 building fires City of Orange departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 116 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 | 26 | 22.4% | |
| 2 | Engine area, running gear, wheel area | 17 | 14.7% | |
| 3 | Other | 10 | 8.6% | |
| 4 | Bedroom - < 5 persons; included are jail or prison | 7 | 6.0% | |
| 5 | Cooking area, kitchen | 6 | 5.2% | |
| 6 | Operator/passenger area of transportation equip. | 5 | 4.3% | |
| 7 | Highway, parking lot, street: on or near | 5 | 4.3% | |
| 8 | Outside area, other | 4 | 3.4% | |
| 9 | Function area, other | 3 | 2.6% | |
| 10 | Wall surface: exterior | 3 | 2.6% | |
| 11 | All other areas | 30 | 25.9% |
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 City of Orange mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Undetermined | 75 | 64.7% | |
| 2 | Hot or smoldering object, other | 12 | 10.3% | |
| 3 | Heat from powered equipment, other | 9 | 7.8% | |
| 4 | Heat source: other | 4 | 3.4% | |
| 5 | Hot ember or ash | 4 | 3.4% | |
| 6 | Radiated, conducted heat from operating equipment | 2 | 1.7% | |
| 7 | Heat from other open flame or smoking materials | 2 | 1.7% | |
| 8 | Candle | 2 | 1.7% | |
| 9 | Spark, ember or flame from operating equipment | 1 | 0.9% | |
| 10 | Arcing | 1 | 0.9% | |
| 11 | All other sources | 4 | 3.4% |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. City of Orange sits above the national average for incidents per resident.
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 10,108 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1995 | Recreation and ceremony | 750 | 47.7 mi | |
| 1999 | Smoking | 700 | 42.6 mi | |
| 2016 | Recreation and ceremony | 641 | 28.8 mi | |
| 1999 | Arson/incendiarism | 623 | 48.8 mi | |
| 2016 | Recreation and ceremony | 552 | 32.2 mi | |
| 1994 | Smoking | 500 | 40.3 mi | |
| 2001 | Arson/incendiarism | 485 | 32.1 mi | |
| 2012 | Smoking | 481 | 37.0 mi | |
| 2010 | Firearms and explosives use | 475 | 20.0 mi | |
| 1999 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 468 | 42.6 mi | |
| 2006 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 450 | 32.6 mi | |
| 1999 | Recreation and ceremony | 410 | 35.9 mi |
Top 3 ZIP codes by NFIRS incident count across 2021–2025. Each ZIP has its own fire profile — dive in for neighborhood-level context.
Six New Jersey cities with population within ±25% of City of Orange. Useful comparison targets — same state, similar size, different fire profile.
1 departments report to NFIRS for incidents in City of Orange.
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.