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.
Where were the fires in 2017?
Click on a community district to see how many fire incidents were recorded there.
Where were the most fires in 2017?
Community districts, ranked
Community Board | Neighborhood(s) | Number of Fires |
Queens Board 4 | Elmhurst/Corona | 1295 |
Manhattan Board 8 | Upper East Side | 1020 |
Brooklyn Board 10 | Bay Ridge/Dyker Heights | 1006 |
Brooklyn Board 1 | Greenpoint/Williamsburg | 969 |
Brooklyn Board 12 | Borough Park | 960 |
Manhattan Board 6 | Stuyvesant Town/Turtle Bay | 940 |
Manhattan Board 3 | Lower East Side/Chinatown | 934 |
Staten Island Board 1 | St. George/Stapleton | 923 |
Brooklyn Board 14 | Flatbush/Midwood | 905 |
Queens Board 5 | Ridgewood/Maspeth | 885 |
Manhattan Board 2 | Greenwich Village/Soho | 870 |
Brooklyn Board 4 | Bushwick | 853 |
Brooklyn Board 9 | South Crown Heights/Lefferts Gardens | 833 |
Bronx Board 4 | Highbridge/Concourse | 818 |
Brooklyn Board 11 | Bensonhurst | 814 |
Bronx Board 8 | Riverdale/Fieldston | 794 |
Manhattan Board 4 | Clinton/Chelsea | 764 |
Bronx Board 1 | Mott Haven/Melrose | 759 |
Manhattan Board 10 | Central Harlem | 758 |
Queens Board 12 | Jamaica/Hollis | 755 |
Bronx Board 7 | Kingsbridge Heights/Bedford | 726 |
Brooklyn Board 6 | Park Slope/Carroll Gardens | 726 |
Bronx Board 12 | Williamsbridge/Baychester | 714 |
Manhattan Board 7 | Upper West Side | 697 |
Queens Board 1 | Astoria | 690 |
Manhattan Board 11 | East Harlem | 678 |
Brooklyn Board 8 | Crown Heights/Prospect Heights | 666 |
Bronx Board 6 | Belmont/East Tremont | 658 |
Bronx Board 10 | Throgs Neck/Co-op City | 634 |
Brooklyn Board 7 | Sunset Park | 634 |
Staten Island Board 3 | Tottenville/Great Kills | 634 |
Staten Island Board 2 | South Beach/Willowbrook | 620 |
Manhattan Board 9 | Morningside Heights/Hamilton | 592 |
Bronx Board 2 | Hunts Point/Longwood | 581 |
Brooklyn Board 15 | Sheepshead Bay | 579 |
Queens Board 6 | Rego Park/Forest Hills | 579 |
Bronx Board 9 | Parkchester/Soundview | 572 |
Brooklyn Board 13 | Coney Island | 569 |
Manhattan Board 12 | Washington Heights/Inwood | 561 |
Brooklyn Board 18 | Flatlands/Canarsie | 559 |
Brooklyn Board 17 | East Flatbush | 556 |
Manhattan Board 5 | Midtown | 548 |
Queens Board 13 | Queens Village | 527 |
Bronx Board 3 | Morrisania/Crotona | 480 |
Queens Board 10 | South Ozone Park/Howard Beach | 453 |
Queens Board 2 | Woodside/Sunnyside | 448 |
Brooklyn Board 2 | Fort Greene/Brooklyn Heights | 441 |
Brooklyn Board 5 | East New York/Starrett City | 430 |
Manhattan Board 1 | Financial District | 429 |
Brooklyn Board 3 | Bedford Stuyvesant | 428 |
Queens Board 14 | Rockaway/Broad Channel | 426 |
Queens Board 8 | Hillcrest/Fresh Meadows | 406 |
Bronx Board 11 | Morris Park/Bronxdale | 390 |
Brooklyn Board 16 | Brownsville | 387 |
Bronx Board 5 | Fordham/University Heights | 383 |
Queens Board 7 | Flushing/Whitestone | 383 |
Queens Board 3 | Jackson Heights | 365 |
Queens Board 9 | Kew Gardens/Woodhaven | 353 |
Queens Board 11 | Bayside/Little Neck | 325 |
What were the fires in 2017?
Incident types. (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 |