In 2025, fire departments serving Sterling responded to 54 fire and hazmat incidents . Here's the full picture.
Hazardous condition, other lead by count. Building fires lead by dollars. Together the top five categories make up about 97% of all calls.
Oct peaks. Jan dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
107 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2025.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021* | 2 | — | |
| 2022 | 24 | — | |
| 2023* | 8 | — | |
| 2024 | 19 | — | |
| 2025 | 54 | +184.2% |
* Well below Sterling'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 5 building fires Sterling departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 1 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 | 1 | 100.0% |
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 Sterling mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cigarette lighter | 1 | 100.0% |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Sterling sits above the national average for incidents per resident.
Top 14 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 1,080 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 694 | 23.5 mi | |
| 2016 | Equipment and vehicle use | 100 | 38.8 mi | |
| 2012 | Smoking | 75 | 46.8 mi | |
| 2008 | Smoking | 30 | 41.1 mi | |
| 2006 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 30 | 49.7 mi | |
| 2008 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 29 | 37.1 mi | |
| 2013 | Misuse of fire by a minor | 24 | 41.5 mi | |
| 2018 | Equipment and vehicle use | 23 | 21.5 mi | |
| 2006 | Debris and open burning | 21 | 37.3 mi | |
| 2004 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 12 | 30.5 mi | |
| 2005 | Railroad operations and maintenance | 11 | 41.7 mi | |
| 2005 | Debris and open burning | 11 | 47.8 mi |
Top 1 ZIP codes by NFIRS incident count across 2021–2025. Each ZIP has its own fire profile — dive in for neighborhood-level context.
| # | ZIP | 5-yr incidents | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 13156 | 107 |
Six New York cities with population within ±25% of Sterling. 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.