In 2025, fire departments serving Palmer responded to 96 fire and hazmat incidents . Here's the full picture.
Brush, or brush and grass mixture fire lead by count. Building fires lead by dollars. Together the top five categories make up about 55% of all calls.
Mar peaks. Jun dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
509 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2024. $1.0M cumulative property loss.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021* | 37 | — | |
| 2022 | 99 | — | |
| 2023 | 129 | +30.3% | |
| 2024 | 148 | +14.7% | |
| 2025 | 96 | -35.1% |
* Well below Palmer'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 Palmer departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 158 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 | Outside area, other | 30 | 19.0% | |
| 2 | Engine area, running gear, wheel area | 16 | 10.1% | |
| 3 | Cooking area, kitchen | 13 | 8.2% | |
| 4 | Open area - outside; included are farmland, field | 12 | 7.6% | |
| 5 | Highway, parking lot, street: on or near | 9 | 5.7% | |
| 6 | Operator/passenger area of transportation equip. | 6 | 3.8% | |
| 7 | Other | 5 | 3.2% | |
| 8 | Wildland, woods | 5 | 3.2% | |
| 9 | Undetermined | 5 | 3.2% | |
| 10 | Vehicle storage area; garage, carport | 4 | 2.5% | |
| 11 | All other areas | 53 | 33.5% |
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 Palmer mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Undetermined | 57 | 36.1% | |
| 2 | Radiated, conducted heat from operating equipment | 25 | 15.8% | |
| 3 | Heat from powered equipment, other | 14 | 8.9% | |
| 4 | Hot ember or ash | 13 | 8.2% | |
| 5 | Spark, ember or flame from operating equipment | 12 | 7.6% | |
| 6 | Arcing | 8 | 5.1% | |
| 7 | Chemical reaction | 8 | 5.1% | |
| 8 | Heat, spark from friction | 5 | 3.2% | |
| 9 | Hot or smoldering object, other | 3 | 1.9% | |
| 10 | Molten, hot material | 2 | 1.3% | |
| 11 | All other sources | 11 | 7.0% |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Palmer sits below the national average for incidents per resident.
7 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 | 1 | |
| 30-39 | 2 | |
| 40-49 | 1 | |
| 50-59 | 3 | |
| 60-69 | 0 | |
| 70-79 | 0 | |
| 80+ | 0 |
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 23,274 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | Arson/incendiarism | 7,949 | 35.7 mi | |
| 2004 | Arson/incendiarism | 2,265 | 32.0 mi | |
| 2009 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2,126 | 46.7 mi | |
| 2008 | Arson/incendiarism | 995 | 38.7 mi | |
| 2015 | Equipment and vehicle use | 848 | 23.1 mi | |
| 2020 | Arson/incendiarism | 812 | 31.4 mi | |
| 1995 | Recreation and ceremony | 750 | 22.4 mi | |
| 2012 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 741 | 42.7 mi | |
| 2015 | Arson/incendiarism | 674 | 36.6 mi | |
| 2016 | Arson/incendiarism | 647 | 32.6 mi | |
| 1999 | Arson/incendiarism | 623 | 21.7 mi | |
| 2014 | Arson/incendiarism | 615 | 38.6 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 Pennsylvania cities with population within ±25% of Palmer. 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.