In 2025, fire departments serving Yonkers responded to 2,086 fire and hazmat incidents . Here's the full picture.
Cooking fire, confined to container lead by count. Building fires lead by dollars. Together the top five categories make up about 79% of all calls.
Nov peaks. Jan dips. Watch for the typical fall climb starting in October.
9,109 incidents 2021–2025. Peak year was 2021. $35K cumulative property loss. 1 civilian deaths.
| Year | Incidents | YoY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 2,950 | — | |
| 2022 | 2,745 | -6.9% | |
| 2023 | 1,327 | -51.7% | |
| 2024* | 1 | — | |
| 2025 | 2,086 | — |
* Well below Yonkers'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 2 building fires Yonkers departments responded to in 2025, here's how they were classified once investigators were finished.
NFIRS Area of Origin (AREA_ORIG) for the 92 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 | Engine area, running gear, wheel area | 15 | 16.3% | |
| 2 | Undetermined | 15 | 16.3% | |
| 3 | Other | 11 | 12.0% | |
| 4 | Bedroom - < 5 persons; included are jail or prison | 9 | 9.8% | |
| 5 | Function area, other | 8 | 8.7% | |
| 6 | Cooking area, kitchen | 7 | 7.6% | |
| 7 | Roof surface: exterior | 4 | 4.3% | |
| 8 | Operator/passenger area of transportation equip. | 3 | 3.3% | |
| 9 | Bathroom, checkroom, lavatory, locker room | 2 | 2.2% | |
| 10 | Structural area, other | 2 | 2.2% | |
| 11 | All other areas | 16 | 17.4% |
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 Yonkers mix.
| # | Heat source | Count | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Undetermined | 42 | 45.7% | |
| 2 | Heat from powered equipment, other | 9 | 9.8% | |
| 3 | Arcing | 7 | 7.6% | |
| 4 | Heat source: other | 6 | 6.5% | |
| 5 | Hot or smoldering object, other | 5 | 5.4% | |
| 6 | Candle | 5 | 5.4% | |
| 7 | Spark, ember or flame from operating equipment | 3 | 3.3% | |
| 8 | Radiated, conducted heat from operating equipment | 3 | 3.3% | |
| 9 | Hot ember or ash | 3 | 3.3% | |
| 10 | Heat from other open flame or smoking materials | 3 | 3.3% | |
| 11 | All other sources | 6 | 6.5% |
Per-capita rates let us compare apples to apples. Yonkers sits above the national average for incidents per resident.
223 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 | 1 | |
| 10-19 | 0 | |
| 20-29 | 20 | |
| 30-39 | 98 | |
| 40-49 | 58 | |
| 50-59 | 40 | |
| 60-69 | 2 | |
| 70-79 | 1 | |
| 80+ | 1 |
Top 25 wildfires (1992+) in the FPA-FOD ignitions database, scaled by acres. 9,446 acres burned in this 50-mile radius. Each dot is a fire — bigger dots burned more land.
| Year | Cause | Acres | Distance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1995 | Equipment and vehicle use | 1,000 | 48.5 mi | |
| 1999 | Smoking | 700 | 29.5 mi | |
| 2016 | Recreation and ceremony | 641 | 19.8 mi | |
| 2016 | Recreation and ceremony | 552 | 24.1 mi | |
| 1994 | Smoking | 500 | 49.9 mi | |
| 2001 | Arson/incendiarism | 485 | 25.4 mi | |
| 2012 | Smoking | 481 | 24.1 mi | |
| 2010 | Firearms and explosives use | 475 | 40.1 mi | |
| 1999 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 468 | 29.5 mi | |
| 2006 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 450 | 48.5 mi | |
| 1999 | Recreation and ceremony | 410 | 22.9 mi | |
| 2013 | Recreation and ceremony | 363 | 8.2 mi |
Top 10 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 Yonkers. Useful comparison targets — same state, similar size, different fire profile.
1 departments report to NFIRS for incidents in Yonkers.
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.