In 2025, fire departments serving Woodbridge responded to 139 fire and hazmat incidents — from cooking fires to gas leaks to a single $5K 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 58% of all calls.
Apr peaks. Oct dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
732 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2023. $75K cumulative property loss.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021* | 65 | — | |
| 2022 | 147 | — | |
| 2023 | 197 | +34.0% | |
| 2024 | 184 | -6.6% | |
| 2025 | 139 | -24.5% |
* Well below Woodbridge'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 17 building fires Woodbridge departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 159 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 | Undetermined | 86 | 54.1% | |
| 2 | Highway, parking lot, street: on or near | 25 | 15.7% | |
| 3 | Engine area, running gear, wheel area | 12 | 7.5% | |
| 4 | Outside area, other | 9 | 5.7% | |
| 5 | Other | 6 | 3.8% | |
| 6 | Bedroom - < 5 persons; included are jail or prison | 3 | 1.9% | |
| 7 | Cooking area, kitchen | 3 | 1.9% | |
| 8 | Courtyard, patio, porch, terrace | 3 | 1.9% | |
| 9 | Laundry area, wash house (laundry) | 2 | 1.3% | |
| 10 | Heating room or area, water heater area | 2 | 1.3% | |
| 11 | All other areas | 8 | 5.0% |
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 Woodbridge mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Undetermined | 149 | 93.7% | |
| 2 | Spark, ember or flame from operating equipment | 3 | 1.9% | |
| 3 | Hot ember or ash | 3 | 1.9% | |
| 4 | Radiated, conducted heat from operating equipment | 2 | 1.3% | |
| 5 | Hot or smoldering object, other | 1 | 0.6% | |
| 6 | Conducted heat from another fire | 1 | 0.6% |
Largest single-incident property losses reported by Woodbridge departments in 2025. These 1 fires alone account for 100% of the city's annual total.
| # | Property loss | Type | Severity | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $5,000 | Building fires | Significant | Investigated |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Woodbridge sits below the national average for incidents per resident.
15 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 | 9 | |
| 40-49 | 2 | |
| 50-59 | 0 | |
| 60-69 | 1 | |
| 70-79 | 1 | |
| 80+ | 0 |
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 50,167 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1995 | Arson/incendiarism | 19,225 | 44.8 mi | |
| 1992 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 5,284 | 49.7 mi | |
| 1992 | Arson/incendiarism | 2,900 | 49.1 mi | |
| 2001 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2,730 | 41.2 mi | |
| 2002 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2,600 | 38.3 mi | |
| 2014 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2,300 | 40.1 mi | |
| 2010 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2,240 | 39.4 mi | |
| 2016 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1,500 | 41.0 mi | |
| 2017 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1,500 | 40.6 mi | |
| 2002 | Recreation and ceremony | 1,277 | 44.0 mi | |
| 2015 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1,012 | 48.9 mi | |
| 1992 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1,000 | 38.5 mi |
Top 5 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 Woodbridge. 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.