Senators Warn Federal Firefighting Budget Nearly Exhausted With Fire Season Not Over
Five senators told Interior and USDA the $6 billion FY2026 fire suppression budget was nearly spent by Sept. 2, citing staffing gaps and firefighter deaths.
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In 2025, fire departments serving Ouray responded to 14 fire and hazmat incidents . Here's the full picture.
Forest, woods or wildland fire lead by count. Building fires lead by dollars. Together the top five categories make up about 57% of all calls.
May peaks. Jan dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
21 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2025. $5K cumulative property loss.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 5 | — | |
| 2022* | 1 | — | |
| 2023* | 1 | — | |
| 2024* | 0 | — | |
| 2025 | 14 | — |
* Well below Ouray'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 0 building fires Ouray departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 5 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 | 4 | 80.0% | |
| 2 | Other | 1 | 20.0% |
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 Ouray mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Heat from powered equipment, other | 1 | 20.0% | |
| 2 | Arcing | 1 | 20.0% | |
| 3 | Fireworks | 1 | 20.0% | |
| 4 | Cigarette lighter | 1 | 20.0% | |
| 5 | Undetermined | 1 | 20.0% |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Ouray sits above the national average for incidents per resident.
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 265,958 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2002 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 73,121 | 41.5 mi | |
| 2018 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 54,129 | 39.9 mi | |
| 2013 | Natural | 49,628 | 36.5 mi | |
| 2002 | Natural | 30,292 | 36.9 mi | |
| 2012 | Natural | 24,931 | 49.2 mi | |
| 2018 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 4,593 | 42.9 mi | |
| 2000 | Natural | 3,211 | 47.7 mi | |
| 2010 | Power generation/transmission/distribution | 2,608 | 29.1 mi | |
| 1999 | Natural | 2,607 | 44.6 mi | |
| 2002 | Natural | 2,244 | 47.2 mi | |
| 2016 | Natural | 2,142 | 45.4 mi | |
| 2003 | Natural | 2,009 | 42.4 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 Colorado cities with population within ±25% of Ouray. Useful comparison targets — same state, similar size, different fire profile.
1 departments report to NFIRS for incidents in Ouray.
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.