In 2025, fire departments serving Santa Fe responded to 478 fire and hazmat incidents — from cooking fires to gas leaks to a single $100K 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 50% of all calls.
Jan peaks. Sep dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
2,007 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2024. $1.6M cumulative property loss.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021* | 30 | — | |
| 2022 | 271 | — | |
| 2023 | 596 | +119.9% | |
| 2024 | 632 | +6.0% | |
| 2025 | 478 | -24.4% |
* Well below Santa Fe'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 14 building fires Santa Fe departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 982 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 | 348 | 35.4% | |
| 2 | Open area - outside; included are farmland, field | 195 | 19.9% | |
| 3 | Highway, parking lot, street: on or near | 108 | 11.0% | |
| 4 | Courtyard, patio, porch, terrace | 47 | 4.8% | |
| 5 | Undetermined | 47 | 4.8% | |
| 6 | Engine area, running gear, wheel area | 37 | 3.8% | |
| 7 | Chute/container - trash, rubbish, waste | 26 | 2.6% | |
| 8 | Cooking area, kitchen | 24 | 2.4% | |
| 9 | Other | 18 | 1.8% | |
| 10 | Wildland, woods | 13 | 1.3% | |
| 11 | All other areas | 119 | 12.1% |
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 Santa Fe mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Undetermined | 524 | 53.4% | |
| 2 | Hot or smoldering object, other | 93 | 9.5% | |
| 3 | Heat source: other | 76 | 7.7% | |
| 4 | Hot ember or ash | 52 | 5.3% | |
| 5 | Cigarette lighter | 36 | 3.7% | |
| 6 | Heat from other open flame or smoking materials | 27 | 2.7% | |
| 7 | Heat from powered equipment, other | 23 | 2.3% | |
| 8 | Match | 23 | 2.3% | |
| 9 | Arcing | 20 | 2.0% | |
| 10 | Spark, ember or flame from operating equipment | 17 | 1.7% | |
| 11 | All other sources | 91 | 9.3% |
Largest single-incident property losses reported by Santa Fe departments in 2025. These 8 fires alone account for 88% of the city's annual total.
| # | Property loss | Type | Severity | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $100,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 2 | $50,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 3 | $50,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 4 | $20,000 | Fires in structures other than in a building | Significant | Investigated |
| 5 | $15,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 6 | $15,000 | Passenger vehicle fire | Significant | Investigated |
| 7 | $10,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 8 | $10,000 | Fires in structures other than in a building | Significant | Investigated |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Santa Fe sits below the national average for incidents per resident.
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 407,460 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | Power generation/transmission/distribution | 156,593 | 32.8 mi | |
| 2000 | Debris and open burning | 47,650 | 27.6 mi | |
| 2000 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 28,348 | 19.5 mi | |
| 2010 | Natural | 27,100 | 37.8 mi | |
| 2013 | Power generation/transmission/distribution | 23,938 | 39.2 mi | |
| 1996 | Recreation and ceremony | 16,575 | 25.6 mi | |
| 2002 | Arson/incendiarism | 12,995 | 21.7 mi | |
| 2013 | Natural | 11,149 | 22.4 mi | |
| 2013 | Power generation/transmission/distribution | 10,219 | 17.2 mi | |
| 2011 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 10,112 | 13.2 mi | |
| 2003 | Natural | 7,165 | 22.6 mi | |
| 2003 | Natural | 6,529 | 18.1 mi |
Top 6 ZIP codes by NFIRS incident count across 2021–2025. Each ZIP has its own fire profile — dive in for neighborhood-level context.
Six New Mexico cities with population within ±25% of Santa Fe. Useful comparison targets — same state, similar size, different fire profile.
2 departments report to NFIRS for incidents in Santa Fe.
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.