In 2025, fire departments serving Westfield responded to 413 fire and hazmat incidents — from cooking fires to gas leaks to a single $390K building blaze. Here's the full picture.
Hazardous condition, other lead by count. Building fires lead by dollars. Together the top five categories make up about 72% of all calls.
Jul peaks. Dec dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
1,627 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2024. $3.6M cumulative property loss.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021* | 192 | — | |
| 2022 | 433 | — | |
| 2023* | 121 | — | |
| 2024 | 468 | — | |
| 2025 | 413 | -11.8% |
* Well below Westfield'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 Westfield departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 184 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 | Cooking area, kitchen | 45 | 24.5% | |
| 2 | Outside area, other | 42 | 22.8% | |
| 3 | Undetermined | 38 | 20.7% | |
| 4 | Highway, parking lot, street: on or near | 7 | 3.8% | |
| 5 | Open area - outside; included are farmland, field | 7 | 3.8% | |
| 6 | Engine area, running gear, wheel area | 5 | 2.7% | |
| 7 | Courtyard, patio, porch, terrace | 5 | 2.7% | |
| 8 | Chute/container - trash, rubbish, waste | 4 | 2.2% | |
| 9 | Equipment or service area, other | 4 | 2.2% | |
| 10 | Exterior balcony, unenclosed porch | 3 | 1.6% | |
| 11 | All other areas | 24 | 13.0% |
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 Westfield mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Undetermined | 93 | 50.5% | |
| 2 | Hot or smoldering object, other | 16 | 8.7% | |
| 3 | Heat from powered equipment, other | 14 | 7.6% | |
| 4 | Spark, ember or flame from operating equipment | 14 | 7.6% | |
| 5 | Radiated, conducted heat from operating equipment | 10 | 5.4% | |
| 6 | Heat source: other | 5 | 2.7% | |
| 7 | Arcing | 5 | 2.7% | |
| 8 | Cigarette | 5 | 2.7% | |
| 9 | Hot ember or ash | 4 | 2.2% | |
| 10 | Heat from other open flame or smoking materials | 4 | 2.2% | |
| 11 | All other sources | 14 | 7.6% |
Largest single-incident property losses reported by Westfield departments in 2025. These 8 fires alone account for 100% of the city's annual total.
| # | Property loss | Type | Severity | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $389,952 | Building fires | Major | Investigated |
| 2 | $32,574 | Fire, other | Significant | Investigated |
| 3 | $23,431 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 4 | $11,079 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 5 | $8,000 | Passenger vehicle fire | Significant | Investigated |
| 6 | $5,000 | Dumpster or other outside trash receptacle fire | Significant | Investigated |
| 7 | $2,886 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
| 8 | $2,886 | Cooking fire, confined to container | Significant | Investigated |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Westfield sits above the national average for incidents per resident.
8 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 | 0 | |
| 20-29 | 2 | |
| 30-39 | 0 | |
| 40-49 | 1 | |
| 50-59 | 3 | |
| 60-69 | 1 | |
| 70-79 | 0 | |
| 80+ | 1 |
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 22,713 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2,730 | 47.4 mi | |
| 2002 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2,600 | 43.8 mi | |
| 2014 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2,300 | 45.7 mi | |
| 2010 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2,240 | 44.8 mi | |
| 2016 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1,500 | 46.5 mi | |
| 2017 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1,500 | 46.3 mi | |
| 1992 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1,000 | 43.9 mi | |
| 1995 | Recreation and ceremony | 750 | 46.1 mi | |
| 1997 | Smoking | 702 | 47.1 mi | |
| 2016 | Recreation and ceremony | 641 | 38.2 mi | |
| 1999 | Arson/incendiarism | 623 | 47.1 mi | |
| 2016 | Recreation and ceremony | 552 | 41.2 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 Jersey cities with population within ±25% of Westfield. Useful comparison targets — same state, similar size, different fire profile.
1 departments report to NFIRS for incidents in Westfield.
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.