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In 2025, fire departments serving The Dalles responded to 134 fire and hazmat incidents — from cooking fires to gas leaks to a single $5.4M building blaze. Here's the full picture.
Authorized controlled burning lead by count. Building fires lead by dollars. Together the top five categories make up about 46% of all calls.
Jul peaks. Jun dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
804 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2021. $10.8M cumulative property loss.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 204 | — | |
| 2022 | 189 | -7.4% | |
| 2023 | 157 | -16.9% | |
| 2024 | 120 | -23.6% | |
| 2025 | 134 | +11.7% |
For the 12 building fires The Dalles departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 341 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 | 75 | 22.0% | |
| 2 | Engine area, running gear, wheel area | 42 | 12.3% | |
| 3 | Undetermined | 35 | 10.3% | |
| 4 | Open area - outside; included are farmland, field | 29 | 8.5% | |
| 5 | Cooking area, kitchen | 17 | 5.0% | |
| 6 | Highway, parking lot, street: on or near | 16 | 4.7% | |
| 7 | Other | 12 | 3.5% | |
| 8 | Wildland, woods | 10 | 2.9% | |
| 9 | Attic: vacant, crawl space above top story, cupola | 9 | 2.6% | |
| 10 | Courtyard, patio, porch, terrace | 9 | 2.6% | |
| 11 | All other areas | 87 | 25.5% |
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 The Dalles mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Undetermined | 180 | 52.8% | |
| 2 | Heat from powered equipment, other | 24 | 7.0% | |
| 3 | Hot ember or ash | 19 | 5.6% | |
| 4 | Radiated, conducted heat from operating equipment | 17 | 5.0% | |
| 5 | Arcing | 17 | 5.0% | |
| 6 | Hot or smoldering object, other | 12 | 3.5% | |
| 7 | Heat source: other | 11 | 3.2% | |
| 8 | Cigarette | 11 | 3.2% | |
| 9 | Spark, ember or flame from operating equipment | 10 | 2.9% | |
| 10 | Heat from other open flame or smoking materials | 9 | 2.6% | |
| 11 | All other sources | 31 | 9.1% |
Largest single-incident property losses reported by The Dalles departments in 2025. These 8 fires alone account for 97% of the city's annual total.
| # | Property loss | Type | Severity | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $5,372,419 | Building fires | Catastrophic | Investigated |
| 2 | $99,365 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 3 | $90,431 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 4 | $60,300 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 5 | $52,954 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 6 | $50,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 7 | $40,000 | Passenger vehicle fire | Significant | Investigated |
| 8 | $30,000 | Passenger vehicle fire | Significant | Investigated |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. The Dalles sits above 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 | 1 | |
| 20-29 | 3 | |
| 30-39 | 0 | |
| 40-49 | 3 | |
| 50-59 | 3 | |
| 60-69 | 1 | |
| 70-79 | 0 | |
| 80+ | 0 |
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 1,005,988 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1996 | Equipment and vehicle use | 118,230 | 43.8 mi | |
| 2018 | Natural | 100,226 | 31.3 mi | |
| 2018 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 78,425 | 4.4 mi | |
| 2017 | Equipment and vehicle use | 68,135 | 35.6 mi | |
| 2018 | Natural | 54,221 | 44.2 mi | |
| 2015 | Natural | 53,523 | 38.2 mi | |
| 2011 | Natural | 51,384 | 39.6 mi | |
| 2014 | Natural | 50,900 | 42.5 mi | |
| 2017 | Fireworks | 48,488 | 35.0 mi | |
| 2018 | Equipment and vehicle use | 33,451 | 13.6 mi | |
| 2015 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 33,103 | 42.8 mi | |
| 2016 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 31,848 | 39.8 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 | 97058 | 804 |
Six Oregon cities with population within ±25% of The Dalles. 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.