San Antonio’s emergency-response burden is not distributed evenly. Between January 1, 2024, and June 30, 2026, ZIP 78207 generated 41,825 distinct San Antonio Fire Department master incidents—nearly 18,700 more than the second-ranked ZIP and roughly 81 percent more volume. The 78207 territory falls under the leadership of Councilwoman Teri Castillo in City Council District 5.

The leading ZIP covers a broad section of the historic West Side, including neighborhood corridors associated with Prospect Hill, Avenida Guadalupe and communities immediately west of downtown. Its total represents 6.73 percent of all incidents that could be assigned to one consistent ZIP.

The next tier crosses the city: 78228 on the near Northwest and West sides; 78223 in the Southeast; 78227 near Lackland and Valley Hi; 78229 in the Medical Center; and 78216 along the North Central and airport corridor. The ranking therefore does not point to one simple geographic story. It identifies several different kinds of emergency-demand centers: historic residential neighborhoods, medical and commercial corridors, dense inner-city districts, and fast-growing outer areas.

What the neighborhood pattern reveals

The top 15 ZIPs account for just over half of the city’s ZIP-assigned incident volume. That concentration creates a practical planning question: are staffing, station placement, specialized units, prevention programs and hospital coordination aligned with the places generating the greatest recurring demand?

These are raw incident totals, not population-adjusted rates. A high-volume ZIP may be large, densely populated, commercially active, institution-heavy or visited by large numbers of nonresidents. The next analytical layer should compare incidents per 1,000 residents, daytime population, age structure, poverty, hospital locations, station coverage and land use before labeling any neighborhood unusually unsafe or underserved.

ZIP 78207 is the only top-ranked area in which the explicit EMS count exceeds the explicit Fire count: 15,524 EMS incidents compared with 13,558 Fire incidents, with another 12,743 records in the other-or-unclassified category. Several other leading ZIPs have especially large unclassified shares, which means the classification dictionary needs to be audited before the citywide Fire-versus-EMS mix is treated as final.

The complete top-30 neighborhood ranking

The table uses neighborhood shorthand to make ZIP-based findings more readable. ZIP boundaries can cross multiple communities, and a neighborhood can extend into more than one ZIP; the names below are contextual associations, not official boundary determinations.

Who is accountable for the next step?

San Antonio operates through a council-manager form of government. Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones and the ten-member City Council set policy, approve the budget and can require public performance reporting. City management and SAFD remain responsible for daily operations, staffing, deployment and execution.

District leaders connected to the highest-demand ZIP areas

The table below identifies the councilmember who should be an immediate accountability contact for major portions of the listed ZIP areas. ZIP and council boundaries do not align perfectly, so the associations are not exclusive. A specific address may be represented by a neighboring district.

Boundary caution: These ZIP references are accountability shorthand based on district footprints and the National Data System’s dominant ZIP-to-council methodology. They do not mean that an entire ZIP lies within one district. The SAFD source also contains a council-district field, which should be used for the next authoritative district-level report.

What City Council can require without waiting for Austin

The most useful meeting would not be a ceremonial roundtable. The Public Safety Committee and Intergovernmental Relations Committee should bring a written SAFD data package, identify the affected state districts through address-level or weighted overlays, and present a short list of funding, reimbursement and workforce requests with measurable outcomes.

A 90-day public accountability agenda

The ranking is a demand map, not a performance verdict. It tells leaders where SAFD master incidents accumulate, but the City must add response time, availability, staffing and outcomes before residents can judge whether resources are proportionate.

The next National Data System publication should calculate population-adjusted rates and compare incidents with station locations, daytime activity, age, disability, poverty, housing age and hospital access. That moves the discussion from “where are the most calls?” to “where is emergency demand greatest relative to people, place and available response capacity?”