Yes, fire incident reports are public record. The report a fire department writes after responding, the incident type, address, times, units, and cause determination, is a government record you can request from the department, and many cities go further and publish their dispatch feeds as open data in near real time. The one consistent carve-out: medical details. When a response involved patient care, that portion is withheld under health privacy law even though the incident itself stays public.
So the clean mental model is a two-layer record. The fire layer, what burned, when, where, and why, is open. The people layer, who was treated and for what, is not. Everything below follows from that split, which sits inside our public records guide for real estate next to its siblings on 311 complaints and building permits.
The three records a fire generates
| Record | What it is | Public? |
|---|---|---|
| CAD / dispatch entry | The 911 system's log: time, address, incident type, units sent | Yes, and often published as a live open-data feed |
| Incident report | The department's written account, with cause and damage details | Yes, on request; medical portions redacted |
| Investigation file | Origin-and-cause work on serious or suspicious fires | Eventually; withheld while an investigation is active |
| EMS / patient care report | Treatment details when medics were involved | No; health privacy law shields it |
Nationally, departments reported into NFIRS, the federal incident reporting standard, for decades, which is why report formats look similar from city to city. NFIRS was retired at the start of 2026 in favor of its successor system, NERIS; either way, the report itself still comes from the local department.
How to get a fire incident report
Request it from the department that responded, which is a standard public records request: date, address, and incident number if you have one. Most departments have a records unit or an online request portal; Seattle routes fire reports, including fire investigations, through the city's public records request center. Turnaround runs days to a few weeks, and the records request playbook that works for code enforcement works word for word here, deadlines and fee limits included. Insurance companies pull these constantly, which is why the process is well-oiled almost everywhere.
For recent incidents you often do not need to request anything. Seattle publishes its fire 911 dispatches as a live dataset updated every five minutes, with the address, incident type, and timestamp of every response. That feed will not give you cause or damage narrative, but it answers "did the fire department go to this address" in about a minute, going back years.
Are 911 call records public?
Mostly, with the same layered logic. The CAD log of a call, that it happened, when, and what type, is public record. Call audio and transcripts are public in many states but subject to more exemptions, and Washington withholds portions that would violate privacy or compromise an investigation. The medical rule repeats here too, and in Washington it is statutory rather than a courtesy: patient health care information is pulled out of the Public Records Act entirely by RCW 42.56.360, so a 911 call that became an EMS run has a public dispatch entry and a private patient record. If your interest is a property rather than a person, the dispatch layer is almost always all you need.
What a fire says about a property
Here is the investor half, and the reason this page exists on this site. A fire is among the strongest distress events a property can experience: repair costs land immediately, insurance may fall short or lapse, and an already-struggling owner often stops struggling and lists, sells, or walks away. We ingest Seattle's live fire feed for exactly this reason, filtered to the three incident types that track property distress rather than routine calls: building fires, rubbish fires, and encampment fires. Since June 2024 that subset is 2,796 incidents across 2,091 Seattle addresses in our database.
The overlap number is the striking one. Of those 2,091 addresses, 617, about 29.5 percent, also carry a code violation case, against a citywide base of 7.3 percent of Seattle properties. That is a four-times co-occurrence, counts not causation, and it runs in both directions: neglected buildings burn more, and burned buildings get cited. Either way, a fire response plus an open violation on one parcel is the profile of an owner with a problem, which is why fire is one of the four inputs in our signal-stacking score and why fire-damaged properties are their own lead strategy with its own etiquette, timing, and math.
If you want the layered version without building anything, the free FlaggedLeads map shows fire incidents stacked with violations, permits, and 311 activity for any Seattle address.
FAQ
Are fire incident reports public record in every state?
Yes, as government records under each state's public records law, with redactions for medical information and active investigations. The request goes to the responding department, not a state agency.
How long does it take to get a fire report?
Days to a few weeks for a routine incident report, longer if the fire is under active investigation, since origin-and-cause files are typically withheld until the investigation closes. The dispatch record, by contrast, is often available the same day through a city's open-data feed.
Can I find out if a house I want to buy ever had a fire?
Three routes: the city's fire dispatch open data filtered to the address, a records request to the fire department for incident history, and the seller disclosure form, which in Washington and most states asks about fire damage directly. The dispatch data is the fastest and catches responses the seller might not volunteer.
Are 911 recordings public?
The dispatch log almost always is. The audio varies by state: many release it with privacy redactions, some exempt it broadly, and medical content is withheld everywhere. For property research the log layer answers the question without touching the sensitive layer.