In 2025, fire departments serving Van Etten responded to 18 fire and hazmat incidents — from cooking fires to gas leaks to a single $200 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 83% of all calls.
Mar peaks. Jan dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
69 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2024. $200 cumulative property loss.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021* | 6 | — | |
| 2022 | 14 | — | |
| 2023 | 13 | -7.1% | |
| 2024 | 18 | +38.5% | |
| 2025 | 18 | +0.0% |
* Well below Van Etten'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 Van Etten 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 Van Etten mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cigarette | 1 | 100.0% |
Largest single-incident property losses reported by Van Etten departments in 2025. These 1 fires alone account for 100% of the city's annual total.
| # | Property loss | Type | Severity | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $200 | Mobile property (vehicle) fire, other | Significant | Investigated |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Van Etten sits above the national average for incidents per resident.
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 1,372 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1995 | Arson/incendiarism | 130 | 36.7 mi | |
| 1999 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 130 | 32.5 mi | |
| 2015 | Debris and open burning | 95 | 41.0 mi | |
| 1999 | Debris and open burning | 85 | 9.9 mi | |
| 2016 | Debris and open burning | 73 | 32.6 mi | |
| 1999 | Debris and open burning | 60 | 43.0 mi | |
| 1997 | Debris and open burning | 60 | 48.2 mi | |
| 2015 | Railroad operations and maintenance | 53 | 36.1 mi | |
| 1995 | Debris and open burning | 52 | 23.1 mi | |
| 2015 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 52 | 39.0 mi | |
| 1997 | Debris and open burning | 50 | 43.0 mi | |
| 1994 | Debris and open burning | 50 | 0.0 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 | 14889 | 69 |
Six New York cities with population within ±25% of Van Etten. Useful comparison targets — same state, similar size, different fire profile.
1 departments report to NFIRS for incidents in Van Etten.
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.