In 2025, fire departments serving Riverside responded to 67 fire and hazmat incidents — from cooking fires to gas leaks to a single $17K 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 73% of all calls.
Mar peaks. Dec dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
201 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2025. $17K cumulative property loss.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 28 | — | |
| 2022 | 48 | +71.4% | |
| 2023 | 49 | +2.1% | |
| 2024* | 9 | — | |
| 2025 | 67 | — |
* Well below Riverside'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 Riverside departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 13 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 | Cooking area, kitchen | 3 | 23.1% | |
| 2 | Outside area, other | 3 | 23.1% | |
| 3 | Open area - outside; included are farmland, field | 3 | 23.1% | |
| 4 | Corridor, mall | 1 | 7.7% | |
| 5 | Laundry area, wash house (laundry) | 1 | 7.7% | |
| 6 | Engine area, running gear, wheel area | 1 | 7.7% | |
| 7 | Highway, parking lot, street: on or near | 1 | 7.7% |
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 Riverside mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Undetermined | 5 | 38.5% | |
| 2 | Spark, ember or flame from operating equipment | 2 | 15.4% | |
| 3 | Hot ember or ash | 2 | 15.4% | |
| 4 | Heat from powered equipment, other | 1 | 7.7% | |
| 5 | Arcing | 1 | 7.7% | |
| 6 | Hot or smoldering object, other | 1 | 7.7% | |
| 7 | Sunlight | 1 | 7.7% |
Largest single-incident property losses reported by Riverside departments in 2025. These 4 fires alone account for 100% of the city's annual total.
| # | Property loss | Type | Severity | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $17,000 | Passenger vehicle fire | Significant | Investigated |
| 2 | $100 | Cultivated vegetation, crop fire, other | Significant | Investigated |
| 3 | $25 | Cooking fire, confined to container | Significant | Investigated |
| 4 | $10 | Fires in structures other than in a building | Significant | Investigated |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Riverside sits below the national average for incidents per resident.
11 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 | 4 | |
| 40-49 | 3 | |
| 50-59 | 1 | |
| 60-69 | 2 | |
| 70-79 | 0 | |
| 80+ | 0 |
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 14,653 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1995 | Arson/incendiarism | 5,050 | 46.0 mi | |
| 1995 | Equipment and vehicle use | 1,000 | 35.7 mi | |
| 2012 | Arson/incendiarism | 992 | 40.2 mi | |
| 1999 | Smoking | 700 | 31.7 mi | |
| 2016 | Recreation and ceremony | 641 | 28.6 mi | |
| 2016 | Recreation and ceremony | 552 | 32.0 mi | |
| 2001 | Smoking | 550 | 45.1 mi | |
| 2001 | Arson/incendiarism | 485 | 33.9 mi | |
| 2012 | Smoking | 481 | 28.2 mi | |
| 1999 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 468 | 31.7 mi | |
| 1999 | Recreation and ceremony | 410 | 27.3 mi | |
| 2013 | Recreation and ceremony | 363 | 18.7 mi |
Top 4 ZIP codes by NFIRS incident count across 2021–2025. Each ZIP has its own fire profile — dive in for neighborhood-level context.
Six Connecticut cities with population within ±25% of Riverside. 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.