In 2025, fire departments serving Salina responded to 204 fire and hazmat incidents — from cooking fires to gas leaks to a single $444K building blaze. Here's the full picture.
Gas leak (natural gas or LPG) lead by count. Building fires lead by dollars. Together the top five categories make up about 51% of all calls.
Mar peaks. Sep dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
977 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2022. $4.1M cumulative property loss. 1 civilian deaths.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 336 | — | |
| 2022 | 343 | +2.1% | |
| 2023* | 36 | — | |
| 2024* | 58 | — | |
| 2025 | 204 | — |
* Well below Salina'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 22 building fires Salina departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 391 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 | Open area - outside; included are farmland, field | 88 | 22.5% | |
| 2 | Engine area, running gear, wheel area | 58 | 14.8% | |
| 3 | Outside area, other | 46 | 11.8% | |
| 4 | Highway, parking lot, street: on or near | 21 | 5.4% | |
| 5 | Cooking area, kitchen | 19 | 4.9% | |
| 6 | Undetermined | 14 | 3.6% | |
| 7 | Courtyard, patio, porch, terrace | 13 | 3.3% | |
| 8 | Wall surface: exterior | 12 | 3.1% | |
| 9 | Wildland, woods | 12 | 3.1% | |
| 10 | Bedroom - < 5 persons; included are jail or prison | 11 | 2.8% | |
| 11 | All other areas | 97 | 24.8% |
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 Salina mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Undetermined | 70 | 17.9% | |
| 2 | Hot ember or ash | 51 | 13.0% | |
| 3 | Arcing | 50 | 12.8% | |
| 4 | Radiated, conducted heat from operating equipment | 22 | 5.6% | |
| 5 | Heat from powered equipment, other | 19 | 4.9% | |
| 6 | Hot or smoldering object, other | 19 | 4.9% | |
| 7 | Cigarette | 17 | 4.3% | |
| 8 | Fireworks | 15 | 3.8% | |
| 9 | Spark, ember or flame from operating equipment | 12 | 3.1% | |
| 10 | Heat source: other | 11 | 2.8% | |
| 11 | All other sources | 105 | 26.9% |
Largest single-incident property losses reported by Salina departments in 2025. These 8 fires alone account for 87% of the city's annual total.
| # | Property loss | Type | Severity | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $444,075 | Building fires | Major | Investigated |
| 2 | $200,000 | Off-road vehicle or heavy equipment fire | Significant | Investigated |
| 3 | $200,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 4 | $72,800 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 5 | $63,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 6 | $58,740 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 7 | $38,900 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 8 | $37,500 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Salina sits below the national average for incidents per resident.
8 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 | 4 | |
| 30-39 | 2 | |
| 40-49 | 1 | |
| 50-59 | 0 | |
| 60-69 | 1 | |
| 70-79 | 0 | |
| 80+ | 0 |
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 91,283 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1994 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 16,000 | 45.4 mi | |
| 2018 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 8,000 | 39.9 mi | |
| 2012 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 8,000 | 41.4 mi | |
| 2012 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 6,278 | 49.3 mi | |
| 2009 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 5,350 | 42.3 mi | |
| 2016 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 5,000 | 49.2 mi | |
| 2009 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 3,840 | 27.8 mi | |
| 2017 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 3,500 | 49.5 mi | |
| 2006 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 3,200 | 46.8 mi | |
| 2016 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 3,200 | 25.3 mi | |
| 2017 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 3,000 | 24.7 mi | |
| 2017 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2,596 | 49.1 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 Kansas cities with population within ±25% of Salina. Useful comparison targets — same state, similar size, different fire profile.
2 departments report to NFIRS for incidents in Salina.
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.