In 2025, fire departments serving Scituate responded to 26 fire and hazmat incidents — from cooking fires to gas leaks to a single $2K building blaze. Here's the full picture.
Cooking fire, confined to container lead by count. Building fires lead by dollars. Together the top five categories make up about 77% of all calls.
Apr peaks. Jan dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
71 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2025. $4K cumulative property loss.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 16 | — | |
| 2022* | 5 | — | |
| 2023* | 2 | — | |
| 2024 | 22 | — | |
| 2025 | 26 | +18.2% |
* Well below Scituate'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 4 building fires Scituate departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 21 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 | 13 | 61.9% | |
| 2 | Outside area, other | 3 | 14.3% | |
| 3 | Other | 1 | 4.8% | |
| 4 | Common room, den, family room, living room, lounge | 1 | 4.8% | |
| 5 | Bedroom - < 5 persons; included are jail or prison | 1 | 4.8% | |
| 6 | Duct: hvac, cable, exhaust, heating, or AC | 1 | 4.8% | |
| 7 | Undetermined | 1 | 4.8% |
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 Scituate mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Heat source: other | 8 | 38.1% | |
| 2 | Undetermined | 4 | 19.0% | |
| 3 | Heat from powered equipment, other | 3 | 14.3% | |
| 4 | Cigarette lighter | 2 | 9.5% | |
| 5 | Radiated, conducted heat from operating equipment | 1 | 4.8% | |
| 6 | Arcing | 1 | 4.8% | |
| 7 | Heat from other open flame or smoking materials | 1 | 4.8% | |
| 8 | Match | 1 | 4.8% |
Largest single-incident property losses reported by Scituate departments in 2025. These 2 fires alone account for 100% of the city's annual total.
| # | Property loss | Type | Severity | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $2,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 2 | $2,000 | Brush, or brush and grass mixture fire | Significant | Investigated |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Scituate sits below the national average for incidents per resident.
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 4,052 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 800 | 48.7 mi | |
| 2008 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 700 | 48.7 mi | |
| 1997 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 361 | 47.9 mi | |
| 2003 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 300 | 40.7 mi | |
| 2002 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 300 | 48.7 mi | |
| 2014 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 256 | 48.6 mi | |
| 2015 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 250 | 49.1 mi | |
| 2016 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 172 | 48.8 mi | |
| 2012 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 150 | 48.5 mi | |
| 2020 | Recreation and ceremony | 94 | 28.7 mi | |
| 2020 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 79 | 48.6 mi | |
| 2018 | Debris and open burning | 58 | 46.8 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 Rhode Island cities with population within ±25% of Scituate. 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.