5th National Risk Assessment: Fueling the Flames

Study key findings & significance

• The First Street Foundation Wildfire Model is the only nationwide, probabilistic, climate adjusted, peer reviewed, property specific wildfire risk model for properties in the contiguous United States.
• The model provides a first of its kind analysis of the risk individual properties face from damaging wildfires today, and up to 30 years in the future as a result of climate changes.
• Nationwide, the report finds nearly 20 million properties face “Moderate” risk, (up to a 6% chance of experiencing a wildfire over 30 years); 6 million properties face “Major” risk (up to 14% risk over 30 years); nearly 3 million face “Severe” risk (up to 26% over 30 years); and approximately 1.5 million face “Extreme” risk (greater than 26% risk over 30 years). Over 49 million properties face less than 1% chance of experiencing a wildfire over a 30-year period, or “Minor” risk in the model.

Author quotes

“The lack of a property specific, climate adjusted wildfire risk for individual properties has severely hindered everyone from the federal government to your average American. As a changing climate drives more frequent and severe wildfire events, Fire Factor will prove critical in ensuring everyone has the insights they need to understand their personal risk to avoid and protect against the devastating impact of a wildfire.”

Matthew Eby, Founder and Executive Director of First Street Foundation

Abstract

The First Street Foundation Wildfire Model builds upon publicly available data and decades of wildfire research and expertise. The model estimates wildfire risk on a property-by-property basis across the United States today and up to 30 years into the future. This high-precision, climate-adjusted wildfire model provides insights for individual property owners of residential, commercial, critical, and social infrastructure buildings. These results are made available through Risk FactorTM, the first free source of high-quality probabilistic wildfire risk information at the property level available to the public. This report provides a high-level overview of the methodology behind the First Street Foundation Wildfire Model, a summary of wildfire risk across the nation, and a series of state pages which summarize and provide insight into new findings about wildfire risk. Across the country, there are 49.4M properties with minor wildfire risk (with a cumulative burn probability below 1%); 20.2M properties with moderate risk (6% maximum cumulative burn probability); 6.0M with major risk (14% maximum burn probability); 2.7M with severe risk (26% maximum cumulative burn probability); and 1.5M properties with extreme risk (with cumulative burn probabilities of 26% and up).

Find your home's risk factors here.