In 2025, fire departments serving West Cape May responded to 14 fire and hazmat incidents — from cooking fires to gas leaks to a single $500 building blaze. Here's the full picture.
Gas leak (natural gas or LPG) lead by count. Building fires lead by dollars. Together the top five categories make up about 86% of all calls.
Aug peaks. Feb dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
89 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2021. $500 cumulative property loss.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 26 | — | |
| 2022 | 20 | -23.1% | |
| 2023* | 9 | — | |
| 2024 | 20 | — | |
| 2025 | 14 | -30.0% |
* Well below West Cape May'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 0 building fires West Cape May departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
Largest single-incident property losses reported by West Cape May departments in 2025. These 1 fires alone account for 100% of the city's annual total.
| # | Property loss | Type | Severity | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $500 | Cooking fire, confined to container | Significant | Investigated |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. West Cape May sits above the national average for incidents per resident.
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 17,005 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | Natural | 3,477 | 44.3 mi | |
| 2020 | Arson/incendiarism | 2,107 | 49.0 mi | |
| 1995 | Arson/incendiarism | 2,000 | 31.4 mi | |
| 2014 | Arson/incendiarism | 1,535 | 27.9 mi | |
| 2020 | Natural | 1,518 | 26.9 mi | |
| 2002 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1,250 | 19.9 mi | |
| 2001 | Arson/incendiarism | 765 | 29.6 mi | |
| 2014 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 569 | 45.2 mi | |
| 2006 | Arson/incendiarism | 518 | 47.8 mi | |
| 1999 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 500 | 31.9 mi | |
| 2012 | Arson/incendiarism | 390 | 49.7 mi | |
| 2000 | Debris and open burning | 350 | 29.0 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 | 08204 | 89 |
Six New Jersey cities with population within ±25% of West Cape May. Useful comparison targets — same state, similar size, different fire profile.
1 departments report to NFIRS for incidents in West Cape May.
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.