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 Portland responded to 4,715 fire and hazmat incidents — from cooking fires to gas leaks to a single $1.5M building blaze. Here's the full picture.
Outside rubbish, trash or waste fire lead by count. Building fires lead by dollars. Together the top five categories make up about 76% of all calls.
Jul peaks. Jan dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
14,170 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2025. $107.4M cumulative property loss. 3 civilian deaths.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021* | 597 | — | |
| 2022 | 2,230 | — | |
| 2023 | 2,481 | +11.3% | |
| 2024 | 4,147 | +67.2% | |
| 2025 | 4,715 | +13.7% |
* Well below Portland'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 302 building fires Portland departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 8,637 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 | 1,769 | 20.5% | |
| 2 | Highway, parking lot, street: on or near | 1,554 | 18.0% | |
| 3 | Bedroom - < 5 persons; included are jail or prison | 969 | 11.2% | |
| 4 | Open area - outside; included are farmland, field | 680 | 7.9% | |
| 5 | Engine area, running gear, wheel area | 587 | 6.8% | |
| 6 | Undetermined | 432 | 5.0% | |
| 7 | Operator/passenger area of transportation equip. | 371 | 4.3% | |
| 8 | Cooking area, kitchen | 344 | 4.0% | |
| 9 | Vehicle area, other | 215 | 2.5% | |
| 10 | Railroad right of way: on or near | 125 | 1.4% | |
| 11 | All other areas | 1,591 | 18.4% |
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 Portland mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Undetermined | 4,007 | 46.4% | |
| 2 | Heat from other open flame or smoking materials | 1,606 | 18.6% | |
| 3 | Hot or smoldering object, other | 613 | 7.1% | |
| 4 | Cigarette | 395 | 4.6% | |
| 5 | Heat from powered equipment, other | 331 | 3.8% | |
| 6 | Arcing | 327 | 3.8% | |
| 7 | Heat source: other | 271 | 3.1% | |
| 8 | Cigarette lighter | 170 | 2.0% | |
| 9 | Flame/torch used for lighting | 128 | 1.5% | |
| 10 | Radiated, conducted heat from operating equipment | 112 | 1.3% | |
| 11 | All other sources | 677 | 7.8% |
Largest single-incident property losses reported by Portland departments in 2025. These 8 fires alone account for 40% of the city's annual total.
| # | Property loss | Type | Severity | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $1,500,000 | Building fires | Major | Investigated |
| 2 | $1,356,890 | Building fires | Major | Investigated |
| 3 | $1,356,890 | Passenger vehicle fire | Major | Investigated |
| 4 | $1,356,890 | Passenger vehicle fire | Major | Investigated |
| 5 | $1,000,000 | Building fires | Major | Investigated |
| 6 | $900,000 | Building fires | Major | Investigated |
| 7 | $767,000 | Building fires | Major | Investigated |
| 8 | $615,000 | Building fires | Major | Investigated |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Portland sits below the national average for incidents per resident.
116 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 | 2 | |
| 10-19 | 1 | |
| 20-29 | 12 | |
| 30-39 | 40 | |
| 40-49 | 22 | |
| 50-59 | 16 | |
| 60-69 | 10 | |
| 70-79 | 4 | |
| 80+ | 9 |
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 259,654 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 138,054 | 44.2 mi | |
| 2017 | Fireworks | 48,488 | 36.6 mi | |
| 2020 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 24,995 | 42.1 mi | |
| 1992 | Smoking | 24,400 | 35.7 mi | |
| 2001 | Natural | 7,500 | 1.2 mi | |
| 2014 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 5,508 | 32.8 mi | |
| 2020 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2,584 | 23.8 mi | |
| 2020 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1,508 | 18.8 mi | |
| 2000 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1,000 | 39.0 mi | |
| 2006 | Natural | 790 | 44.5 mi | |
| 2020 | Power generation/transmission/distribution | 532 | 33.2 mi | |
| 2020 | Power generation/transmission/distribution | 497 | 26.1 mi |
Top 10 ZIP codes by NFIRS incident count across 2021–2025. Each ZIP has its own fire profile — dive in for neighborhood-level context.
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.