In 2025, fire departments serving Van Buren responded to 16 fire and hazmat incidents . Here's the full picture.
Building fires lead by count. Building fires lead by dollars. Together the top five categories make up about 88% of all calls.
Jan peaks. Feb dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
54 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2022.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021* | 1 | — | |
| 2022 | 18 | — | |
| 2023 | 9 | -50.0% | |
| 2024 | 10 | +11.1% | |
| 2025 | 16 | +60.0% |
* Well below Van Buren'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 7 building fires Van Buren departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Van Buren sits below the national average for incidents per resident.
Top 20 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 1,197 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 | 22.7 mi | |
| 2016 | Equipment and vehicle use | 100 | 20.3 mi | |
| 2007 | Natural | 65 | 41.6 mi | |
| 2003 | Arson/incendiarism | 49 | 42.9 mi | |
| 2008 | Smoking | 30 | 32.4 mi | |
| 2008 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 29 | 17.1 mi | |
| 2009 | Debris and open burning | 25 | 44.6 mi | |
| 1993 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 25 | 44.8 mi | |
| 2013 | Misuse of fire by a minor | 24 | 21.4 mi | |
| 2018 | Equipment and vehicle use | 23 | 36.7 mi | |
| 2006 | Debris and open burning | 21 | 23.7 mi | |
| 2009 | Debris and open burning | 17 | 45.4 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 New York cities with population within ±25% of Van Buren. 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.