New report has first estimates of wildfire risk for every ZIP

Average wildfire risk for each Zip code (New York Times map; click the image to enlarge it.)

"The nation’s wildfire risk is widespread, severe and accelerating quickly, according to new data that, for the first time, calculates the risk facing every property in the contiguous United States. The data, released Monday by the First Street Foundation, a nonprofit research group in New York, comes as rising housing prices in cities and suburbs push Americans deeper into fire-prone areas, with little idea about the specific risk in their new locale," Christopher Flavelle and Nadja Popovich report for The New York Times. "That’s because the federal government maps flood risk at the property level but doesn’t do the same for wildfires, which are growing more frequent and severe because of climate change."

About 50% of addresses in the contiguous U.S. are at some level of risk of wildfire; the new data predicts that will increase to 56% by 2052.  In some disproportionately rural states, like Wyoming and Montana, more than 90% of properties are at some level of risk from wildfires, Flavelle and Popovich report. 

"Of all the addresses nationwide that could be damaged by wildfire, more than 686,000 face at least a 1 percent chance this year — the same degree of risk that the government uses to determine which houses are sufficiently in danger of flooding that they need flood insurance. But wildfire risk is more dangerous, according to First Street, because, while flooding often damages only parts of a house, fire is more likely to destroy it entirely," Flavelle and Popovich report. "A 1 percent risk may seem small. But that possibility compounds over time, becoming a 26 percent risk over 30 years — the span of a typical mortgage. Over the course of that 30-year mortgage, more than 381,000 properties nationwide face a risk of wildfire that is greater than 50 percent, according to First Street."