Source: First Street Foundation The future projection reflects a warming scenario in which countries take measures to curb emissions over the next 30 years roughly in line with pledges under the Paris climate agreement. It builds on estimates from the United States Forest Service of community-level wildfire risk. The model is based on a number of factors, including the proximity to combustible fuels that contribute to wildfire - like shrubs, grasses and trees - historical weather, previous fires, and warming climate conditions like temperature and precipitation. 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.įirst Street’s analysis of property-level exposure to risk is underpinned by a high-resolution model of wildfire behavior across the country. But that possibility compounds over time, becoming a 26 percent risk over 30 years - the span of a typical mortgage. 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.Ī 1 percent risk may seem small. 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. In some rural states, including Wyoming and Montana, more than 90 percent of properties already face some risk. Half of all addresses in the lower 48 states face some degree of wildfire risk, according to First Street’s model, a number that will rise to 56 percent by 2052. The data is being released at the outset of what promises to be an even worse wildfire season than usual, with blazes already burning in more than a dozen states. Wright said he hoped the new data would “draw attention to the risk and drive people to take action.”Ī plot for sale in Dammeron Valley, 15 miles north of St. “For too long, we have let people live in communities, and even attracted them to join a community, while keeping them in a state of ignorance about the risk that they’re under,” said Roy Wright, a former head of risk mitigation at the Federal Emergency Management Agency. 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. 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. Alaska and Hawaii were not part of the First Street analysis.ĭAMMERON VALLEY, Utah - 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. Areas shown with no data don’t have a ZIP code, indicating they have few or no residents, or, in some cases, represent areas where digitized parcel-level data was not available. Census The map reflects Census ZIP code designations.
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