AZ Law Now · Data Report · Maricopa & Pinal Counties · 2005-2025
The 21-Year Map Behind Arizona's Record Drowning Year
Every summer the Valley posts another record year for child drownings, the number lands, and the season moves on. The map underneath it never gets drawn. We drew it. We read 21 years of fire-department water-incident reports, all 3,252 of them, and computed what a single record-year headline can never show.
of every water-emergency call across Maricopa and Pinal counties was answered by one department.
3,252 water-incident responses logged · 1,122 of them fatal
Children's Safety Zone has logged every water-rescue and drowning call the Valley's fire departments run, one year at a time, for two decades.
We summed all 21 years for the first time. Here is what the record shows, finding by finding, with every number free to use with credit.
The concentration
One department answers nearly half of every call
43.5% answered by the Phoenix Fire Department alone
Across 3,252 water-incident responses over 21 years, the Phoenix Fire Department alone answered 1,414 of them, 43.5% of every logged call in the two counties. Add the next four busiest jurisdictions and five departments account for 73.8% of everything.
In a metro area of almost five million people, the calls don't spread evenly. They concentrate.
The concentration only holds up when the math is shown, so here's the math. A few departments appear in the archive under more than one name across 21 years of renames. We merged those labels and show exactly which ones combine, so anyone can re-add the column and rebuild the number.
| Responding jurisdiction | Source-archive labels merged | Responses 2005-2025 | Share of 3,252 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Phoenix Fire Department | Phoenix Fire Department | 1,414 | 43.5% |
| Mesa Fire & Medical Department | Mesa Fire & Medical Department, Mesa Fire Department | 427 | 13.1% |
| Maricopa County Sheriff's Office | Sheriff's Department Maricopa County, Maricopa County Sheriff's Department | 197 | 6.1% |
| Gilbert Fire Department | Gilbert Fire Department | 190 | 5.8% |
| Scottsdale Fire Department | Scottsdale Fire Department | 171 | 5.3% |
| Top five combined | 2,399 | 73.8% |
A response-volume map, not a fatality-rate ranking. It names which departments field the most calls, not which neighborhoods the water sits in. Source: Children's Safety Zone annual reports, 2005 to 2025.
The trend
The calls are fewer, and deadlier
42.4% of water calls now end in death, up from 31.7%
The second question is the one every record-year headline dodges: is this actually getting worse? Compare the first five years of the archive to the last five. Raw call volume didn't climb. It fell.
| Measure | 2005-2009 avg/yr | 2021-2025 avg/yr | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Water-incident responses | 161.4 | 149.4 | down 7.4% |
| Fatal outcomes | 51.2 | 63.4 | up 23.8% |
| Fatal share of responses | 31.7% | 42.4% | up 10.7 points |
Five-year averages smooth the year-to-year noise. Source: Children's Safety Zone annual reports, 2005 to 2025.
Read the bottom row. Responses dropped 7.4% between the two windows, but fatal outcomes rose 23.8%. The share of water calls that end in death climbed from 31.7% to 42.4%, more than ten percentage points, even as the raw number of calls went down. Fewer incidents, deadlier ones. That's the opposite of a problem solving itself.
The full record
Every year, 2005 to 2025
The whole archive on one page: total water-incident responses, fatalities, and the share of calls that ended in death, for each of the 21 years. Copy any row, it's free to use with credit.
| Year | Responses | Fatalities | Fatal share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | 158 | 55 | 34.8% |
| 2006 | 159 | 52 | 32.7% |
| 2007 | 175 | 53 | 30.3% |
| 2008 | 153 | 49 | 32.0% |
| 2009 | 162 | 47 | 29.0% |
| 2010 | 140 | 48 | 34.3% |
| 2011 | 180 | 49 | 27.2% |
| 2012 | 170 | 60 | 35.3% |
| 2013 | 140 | 44 | 31.4% |
| 2014 | 152 | 53 | 34.9% |
| 2015 | 158 | 46 | 29.1% |
| 2016 | 157 | 53 | 33.8% |
| 2017 | 153 | 61 | 39.9% |
| 2018 | 161 | 52 | 32.3% |
| 2019 | 150 | 36 | 24.0% |
| 2020 | 137 | 47 | 34.3% |
| 2021 | 159 | 64 | 40.3% |
| 2022 | 143 | 60 | 42.0% |
| 2023 | 133 | 57 | 42.9% |
| 2024 | 157 | 79 | 50.3% |
| 2025 | 155 | 57 | 36.8% |
| 2005-2025 total | 3,252 | 1,122 | 34.5% |
Maricopa and Pinal counties, all ages. In 2007 and 2013 the summed department rows differ by a single incident from the archive's own headline total, a transcription artifact in those two source reports that doesn't move any multi-year figure. Source: Children's Safety Zone annual reports, 2005 to 2025.
Pima County
The Tucson total, county grain only
The archive tracks Pima County too, though at the county total rather than the department level used above. We keep it at the county line on purpose. The finer, per-department Pima breakout in the source captures only a fraction of the real county count, so we report the number the data can actually stand behind: the annual total.
| Year | Pima County water-incident responses |
|---|---|
| 2011 | 17 |
| 2012 | 15 |
| 2013 | 24 |
| 2014 | 18 |
| 2015 | 10 |
| 2016 | 8 |
| 2017 | 13 |
| 2018 | 13 |
| 2019 | 12 |
| 2020 | 13 |
| 2021 | 16 |
| 2022 | 10 |
| 2023 | 8 |
| 2024 | 5 |
| 2011-2024 total | 182 |
Pima County total, all departments, all ages. County grain only. Source: Children's Safety Zone annual reports, 2011 to 2024.
The honest limit
This names the department, not the block
This data names the responding fire department, not the street. Its grain is jurisdiction, a Phoenix Fire coverage area that spans a huge and varied slice of the city, not a zip code or a neighborhood. So we can tell you which department answers the most calls, not which streets the water sits on.
No public dataset breaks these responses below the fire-department level. The finer cut, the one that would tie incidents to specific addresses, pool permits, or barrier-compliance records, needs hospital-discharge and permit data that isn't public yet.
When we have it, that's a separate map. This one stops at the jurisdiction line, and we'd rather say so than imply a precision we don't have.
The 21-year map shows the pattern the individual cases sit inside. For the case behind the numbers, the pool-barrier law, the attractive-nuisance doctrine, and who's liable when a child drowns, read our Arizona child drownings investigation.
The receipts
Sources and method
Every figure on this page is recomputed by AZ Law Now from a single primary archive: the Children's Safety Zone water-related incidents and fatalities reports for Maricopa and Pinal counties, published one year at a time and drawn from the responding fire departments. We summed all 21 annual reports, 2005 through 2025, to build the cross-year rollup. The archive publishes each year on its own and had never been added up across the full window.
The concentration figures are a groupby on the responding-department label, summed across all 21 years. Where a department appears under more than one name because of a rename, we merged the labels and publish the exact crosswalk above, so a re-check reproduces the share. The department table reports response volume only, not a fatality rate: a jurisdiction that logs mostly recovery calls shows a near-total fatal share that reflects what it records, not how it responds, so we don't rank departments by lethality.
The trend figures are annual sums split on the fatal and total columns, compared as five-year averages at each end of the window, with the fatal-share line drawn as a five-year rolling average. We cross-checked the direction of the fatality trend against the Arizona Department of Health Services Child Fatality Review Program, whose independently collected statewide drowning totals rise across the same two decades. One caution on that state series: the 2013 statewide total is reported as 80 in the 2013 edition and 90 in every later edition, a documented late-filed-death-certificate revision, so we lean on the direction, not a single contested year.
Our companion Arizona child drownings investigation works the same beat from the legal side: the pool-barrier statute, the attractive-nuisance doctrine, and the wrongful-death clock.
- Children's Safety Zone. Water-Related Incidents and Fatalities Archives, Maricopa and Pinal Counties annual reports, 2005 through 2025, and Pima County totals, 2011 through 2024. childrensafetyzone.com/water-related-incidents-fatalities-archives
- Arizona Department of Health Services, Child Fatality Review Program. Annual Reports (statewide drowning-death cross-check). azdhs.gov/prevention/womens-childrens-health/injury-prevention/child-fatality-review
Questions, answered
Frequently asked
How many water-incident calls have Valley fire departments logged?
Fire departments across Maricopa and Pinal counties logged 3,252 water-incident responses from 2005 through 2025, in the Children's Safety Zone annual archives. Of those, 1,122 ended in a death. AZ Law Now summed all 21 years of the archive to build the first cross-year map of who answers those calls.
Which fire department responds to the most drownings in Phoenix?
The Phoenix Fire Department. Across 21 years it answered 1,414 of every 3,252 water-incident calls in Maricopa and Pinal counties, 43.5% of the total. The next four busiest jurisdictions bring the top five to 73.8% of every logged call. This is response-volume, meaning which department fields the call, not a ranking of which neighborhoods are most dangerous.
Are Arizona drownings getting worse or better?
Raw call volume is flat to down, but outcomes are worsening. Comparing the first five years of the archive to the last five, water-incident responses fell 7.4% while fatal outcomes rose 23.8%. The share of calls that end in death climbed from 31.7% to 42.4%, more than ten percentage points. Fewer incidents, deadlier ones.
Does this data show which neighborhoods have the most drownings?
No. The data names the responding fire department, not the block. A Phoenix Fire coverage area spans a large and varied slice of the city, so the map stops at the jurisdiction line. No public dataset breaks these responses below the fire-department level. Tying incidents to specific addresses or pool-permit records needs hospital-discharge and permit data that is not yet public.
Where does this drowning data come from?
Children's Safety Zone publishes an annual water-related incidents and fatalities report for Maricopa and Pinal counties, drawn from the responding fire departments, and a Pima County total. AZ Law Now recomputed every figure on this page by summing those annual reports across 2005 to 2025, and cross-checked the fatality trend against the Arizona Department of Health Services Child Fatality Review Program.
Lost a child to a drowning that a barrier should have stopped?
A pool's missing fence or a broken gate can be part of the record. Arizona law already sets the standard of care, and the deadline to act is short. Our guides break down who can be held liable and what to do next.
Read the Arizona premises liability guide