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One night last summer my family and I were driving back to our neighborhood when we saw a thick, black plume of smoke spreading across the sky. It was coming from about two blocks south of our house. The streets were clogged with emergency vehicles, their lights flashing, and sirens sounded as additional equipment rolled in. It seemed like the whole block was on fire. In fact, it was just one house.
The next day the property was tidily boarded up. The impact on the neighborhood was minimal—same as the previous summer, when a fire chewed up a decent part of my neighbor’s back room, or that fall, when my teenage son had to call 911 because our oven caught fire. Two much more serious house fires on surrounding blocks in the previous five years didn’t seem to have much effect either, beyond their impact on the families who lived at those addresses. Those blazes did blanket the neighborhood in smoke and leave charred remains behind, but they were nothing like the Halloween 2009 fire that wiped out 10 stores on our major commercial strip, Bainbridge Avenue, nor the arson fire a few months later that zapped a diner, bank and supermarket.
The point is, fire is not as big a force in the city as it was 40 years ago, but it is still a factor in the life of neighborhoods and families. It can still cause stunning tragedy and mass displacement. It can still shape the trajectory of individual families, and sometimes of blocks or neighborhoods.
OpenData NYC offers an incident-by-incident account of every fire incident in the city over the past several years. Below is a look at which community districts saw the most incidents, and what kinds of incidents caused the most action.
Click on a community district to see how many fire incidents were recorded there.
Community districts, ranked
| Community District | Neighborhoods | Number of fire incidents |
| Queens Community Board 12 | Jamaica/Hollis | 1,295 |
| Manhattan Community Board 5 | Midtown | 1,020 |
| Brooklyn Community Board 18 | Flatlands/Canarsie | 1,006 |
| Brooklyn Community Board 1 | Greenpoint/Williamsburg | 969 |
| Brooklyn Community Board 3 | Bedford Stuyvesant | 960 |
| Manhattan Community Board 3 | Lower East Side/Chinatown | 940 |
| Manhattan Community Board 11 | East Harlem | 934 |
| Staten Island Community Board 1 | St. George/Stapleton | 923 |
| Brooklyn Community Board 5 | East New York/Starrett City | 905 |
| Queens Community Board 13 | Queens Village | 885 |
| Manhattan Community Board 10 | Central Harlem | 870 |
| Brooklyn Community Board 12 | Borough Park | 853 |
| Brooklyn Community Board 17 | East Flatbush | 833 |
| Bronx Community Board 12 | Williamsbridge/Baychester | 818 |
| Brooklyn Community Board 2 | Fort Greene/Brooklyn Heights | 814 |
| Bronx Community Board 5 | Fordham/University Heights | 794 |
| Manhattan Community Board 12 | Washington Heights/Inwood | 764 |
| Bronx Community Board 1 | Mott Haven/Melrose | 759 |
| Manhattan Community Board 7 | Upper West Side | 758 |
| Queens Community Board 7 | Flushing/Whitestone | 755 |
| Bronx Community Board 4 | Highbridge/Concourse | 726 |
| Brooklyn Community Board 14 | Flatbush/Midwood | 726 |
| Bronx Community Board 9 | Parkchester/Soundview | 714 |
| Manhattan Community Board 4 | Clinton/Chelsea | 697 |
| Queens Community Board 1 | Astoria | 690 |
| Manhattan Community Board 8 | Upper East Side | 678 |
| Brooklyn Community Board 16 | Brownsville | 666 |
| Bronx Community Board 3 | Morrisania/Crotona | 658 |
| Bronx Community Board 7 | Kingsbridge Heights/Bedford | 634 |
| Brooklyn Community Board 15 | Sheepshead Bay | 634 |
| Staten Island Community Board 3 | Tottenville/Great Kills | 634 |
| Staten Island Community Board 2 | South Beach/Willowbrook | 620 |
| Manhattan Community Board 6 | Stuyvesant Town/Turtle Bay | 592 |
| Bronx Community Board 10 | Throgs Neck/Co-op City | 581 |
| Brooklyn Community Board 6 | Park Slope/Carroll Gardens | 579 |
| Queens Community Board 14 | Rockaway/Broad Channel | 579 |
| Bronx Community Board 6 | Belmont/East Tremont | 572 |
| Brooklyn Community Board 4 | Bushwick | 569 |
| Manhattan Community Board 9 | Morningside Heights/Hamilton | 561 |
| Brooklyn Community Board 9 | South Crown Heights/Lefferts Gardens | 559 |
| Brooklyn Community Board 8 | Crown Heights/Prospect Heights | 556 |
| Manhattan Community Board 2 | Greenwich Village/Soho | 548 |
| Queens Community Board 8 | Hillcrest/Fresh Meadows | 527 |
| Bronx Community Board 11 | Morris Park/Bronxdale | 480 |
| Queens Community Board 5 | Ridgewood/Maspeth | 453 |
| Queens Community Board 10 | South Ozone Park/Howard Beach | 448 |
| Brooklyn Community Board 10 | Bay Ridge/Dyker Heights | 441 |
| Brooklyn Community Board 13 | Coney Island | 430 |
| Manhattan Community Board 1 | Financial District | 429 |
| Brooklyn Community Board 11 | Bensonhurst | 428 |
| Queens Community Board 9 | Kew Gardens/Woodhaven | 426 |
| Queens Community Board 3 | Jackson Heights | 406 |
| Bronx Community Board 8 | Riverdale/Fieldston | 390 |
| Brooklyn Community Board 7 | Sunset Park | 387 |
| Bronx Community Board 2 | Hunts Point/Longwood | 383 |
| Queens Community Board 2 | Woodside/Sunnyside | 383 |
| Queens Community Board 11 | Bayside/Little Neck | 365 |
| Queens Community Board 4 | Elmhurst/Corona | 353 |
| Queens Community Board 6 | Rego Park/Forest Hills | 325 |
Incident types, ranked
(Per the FDNY’s manual, class A multiple dwellings mean buildings housing three or more families in which residency is permanent in nature, and class B multiple dwelling are “occupied transiently.”)
| Incident type | Number of incidents |
| Multiple Dwelling ‘A’ – Food on the stove fire | 8,849 |
| Private Dwelling Fire | 6,856 |
| Demolition Debris or Rubbish Fire | 6,529 |
| Multiple Dwelling ‘A’ – Other fire | 4,236 |
| Other Commercial Building Fire | 2,875 |
| Automobile Fire | 1,827 |
| Manhole Fire – Seeping Smoke | 1,745 |
| Multiple Dwelling ‘B’ Fire | 1,546 |
| Transit System – NonStructural | 1,368 |
| Manhole Fire – Other | 1,174 |
| Brush Fire | 1,169 |
| School Fire | 607 |
| Hospital Fire | 387 |
| Multiple Dwelling ‘A’ – Compactor fire | 372 |
| Store Fire | 291 |
| Manhole Fire – Blown Cover | 248 |
| Other Transportation Fire | 206 |
| Other Public Building Fire | 156 |
| Church Fire | 134 |
| Abandoned Derelict Vehicle Fire | 59 |
| Construction or Demolition Building Fire | 51 |
| Untenanted Building Fire | 46 |
| Transit System – Structural | 36 |
| Factory Fire | 35 |
| Theater or TV Studio Fire | 25 |
| Undefined Nonstructural Fire | 4 |
| Manhole Fire – Extended to Building | 2 |
3 Comments
native new yorker
Many of the fires in SI-2 and SI-3 are brush fires along the east shore.
Luke O’Brien
This is very interesting data. I was somewhat puzzled by a difference in the data on the map and the table listing the Community Boards with the most fires.
If you click on the map for Community Board #4 (Elmhurst/Corona) 353 fire incidents are reported for 2017. However the table lists 1,295 fires in Community Board 4 in 2017. Is it possible that the table is for a longer period of time ?
Jarrett Murphy
You had every right to be puzzled. The data in the chart got misordered somehow. It’s been corrected now. Thanks for catching.