In 2025, fire departments serving Rahway responded to 394 fire and hazmat incidents — from cooking fires to gas leaks to a single $311K building blaze. Here's the full picture.
Power line down lead by count. Building fires lead by dollars. Together the top five categories make up about 65% of all calls.
Jul peaks. Jan dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
1,414 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2024. $23.1M cumulative property loss.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 209 | — | |
| 2022* | 169 | — | |
| 2023 | 193 | — | |
| 2024 | 449 | +132.6% | |
| 2025 | 394 | -12.2% |
* Well below Rahway'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 Rahway departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 98 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 | 21 | 21.4% | |
| 2 | Engine area, running gear, wheel area | 16 | 16.3% | |
| 3 | Outside area, other | 16 | 16.3% | |
| 4 | Open area - outside; included are farmland, field | 9 | 9.2% | |
| 5 | Other | 5 | 5.1% | |
| 6 | Bedroom - < 5 persons; included are jail or prison | 4 | 4.1% | |
| 7 | Cooking area, kitchen | 3 | 3.1% | |
| 8 | Machinery room or area; elevator machinery room | 3 | 3.1% | |
| 9 | Substructure area or space, crawl space | 2 | 2.0% | |
| 10 | Wall surface: exterior | 2 | 2.0% | |
| 11 | All other areas | 17 | 17.3% |
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 Rahway mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Undetermined | 44 | 44.9% | |
| 2 | Radiated, conducted heat from operating equipment | 7 | 7.1% | |
| 3 | Hot or smoldering object, other | 7 | 7.1% | |
| 4 | Heat from powered equipment, other | 6 | 6.1% | |
| 5 | Arcing | 6 | 6.1% | |
| 6 | Cigarette lighter | 5 | 5.1% | |
| 7 | Chemical reaction | 5 | 5.1% | |
| 8 | Hot ember or ash | 4 | 4.1% | |
| 9 | Cigarette | 4 | 4.1% | |
| 10 | Spark, ember or flame from operating equipment | 2 | 2.0% | |
| 11 | All other sources | 8 | 8.2% |
Largest single-incident property losses reported by Rahway departments in 2025. These 2 fires alone account for 100% of the city's annual total.
| # | Property loss | Type | Severity | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $311,027 | Building fires | Major | Investigated |
| 2 | $7,000 | Passenger vehicle fire | Significant | Investigated |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Rahway sits above the national average for incidents per resident.
6 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 | 1 | |
| 10-19 | 0 | |
| 20-29 | 0 | |
| 30-39 | 2 | |
| 40-49 | 1 | |
| 50-59 | 1 | |
| 60-69 | 0 | |
| 70-79 | 0 | |
| 80+ | 0 |
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 42,225 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1995 | Arson/incendiarism | 19,225 | 48.1 mi | |
| 2001 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2,730 | 44.4 mi | |
| 2002 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2,600 | 41.6 mi | |
| 2014 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2,300 | 43.4 mi | |
| 2010 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2,240 | 42.7 mi | |
| 2016 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1,500 | 44.3 mi | |
| 2017 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1,500 | 43.9 mi | |
| 2002 | Recreation and ceremony | 1,277 | 47.1 mi | |
| 1992 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1,000 | 41.8 mi | |
| 1997 | Smoking | 702 | 44.0 mi | |
| 2016 | Recreation and ceremony | 641 | 40.1 mi | |
| 2017 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 571 | 49.6 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 New Jersey cities with population within ±25% of Rahway. Useful comparison targets — same state, similar size, different fire profile.
1 departments report to NFIRS for incidents in Rahway.
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.