In 2025, fire departments serving Parowan responded to 46 fire and hazmat incidents — from cooking fires to gas leaks to a single $8K building blaze. 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 50% of all calls.
Jun peaks. Jan dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
121 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2025. $962K cumulative property loss.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 32 | — | |
| 2022 | 24 | -25.0% | |
| 2023* | 12 | — | |
| 2024* | 7 | — | |
| 2025 | 46 | — |
* Well below Parowan'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 Parowan departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 28 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 | Other | 21 | 75.0% | |
| 2 | Function area, other | 1 | 3.6% | |
| 3 | Cooking area, kitchen | 1 | 3.6% | |
| 4 | Bathroom, checkroom, lavatory, locker room | 1 | 3.6% | |
| 5 | Closet | 1 | 3.6% | |
| 6 | Attic: vacant, crawl space above top story, cupola | 1 | 3.6% | |
| 7 | Outside area, other | 1 | 3.6% | |
| 8 | Undetermined | 1 | 3.6% |
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 Parowan mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Heat source: other | 14 | 50.0% | |
| 2 | Arcing | 5 | 17.9% | |
| 3 | Undetermined | 3 | 10.7% | |
| 4 | Heat from undetermined smoking material | 2 | 7.1% | |
| 5 | Heat from powered equipment, other | 1 | 3.6% | |
| 6 | Spark, ember or flame from operating equipment | 1 | 3.6% | |
| 7 | Radiated, conducted heat from operating equipment | 1 | 3.6% | |
| 8 | Lightning | 1 | 3.6% |
Largest single-incident property losses reported by Parowan departments in 2025. These 1 fires alone account for 100% of the city's annual total.
| # | Property loss | Type | Severity | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $8,000 | Passenger vehicle fire | Significant | Investigated |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Parowan sits above the national average for incidents per resident.
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 395,548 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | Debris and open burning | 71,675 | 7.9 mi | |
| 2010 | Natural | 44,892 | 44.7 mi | |
| 2002 | Debris and open burning | 42,799 | 35.0 mi | |
| 2012 | Natural | 19,778 | 22.4 mi | |
| 2019 | Natural | 19,151 | 21.1 mi | |
| 2006 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 17,632 | 42.6 mi | |
| 1996 | Natural | 14,854 | 42.0 mi | |
| 2007 | Debris and open burning | 14,656 | 26.2 mi | |
| 2009 | Natural | 12,607 | 41.1 mi | |
| 2005 | Natural | 12,286 | 46.3 mi | |
| 2018 | Recreation and ceremony | 11,771 | 44.3 mi | |
| 1994 | Natural | 10,700 | 37.0 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 Utah cities with population within ±25% of Parowan. Useful comparison targets — same state, similar size, different fire profile.
1 departments report to NFIRS for incidents in Parowan.
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.