Today,
wildfires rage across other parts of the U.S. In 2024, as of July 15, more than 24,000 wildfires burned over 3 million acres of land, according to the NIFC.[1] California remains the one of the riskiest states in terms of wildfire activity and loss. In 2024, as of July 14, over 3,800 wildfires burned over 190,000 acres in the state.[2]
Wildfires continue to pose a threat to property and livelihoods across the U.S. The events of last year and activity to date highlight the importance of insurance and risk management in safeguarding communities against such catastrophic events.
The CoreLogic 2024 Wildfire Risk Report quantifies the current wildfire risk landscape in the United States and highlights the importance of risk mitigation for communities and properties
[1] https://www.nifc.gov/fire-information/nfn
[2]https://gacc.nifc.gov/sacc/predictive/intelligence/NationalYTDbyStateandAgency.pdf
This report will:
- Quantify the magnitude of wildfire risk at the national, state, and metropolitan levels
- Demonstrate using risk scores and catastrophe models to write in California in a new regulatory environment
- Measuring the effectiveness of wildfire mitigation strategies through the lens of Paradise, California
- Update on the recovery efforts in Lahaina
- Look to the future and the broader impact of climate change on wildfire risk
The Risk Landscape
Understanding the entirety of the risk landscape is crucial for effectively assessing and managing wildfire threats. By examining the quantity of homes and their reconstruction cost value (RCV) based on wildfire risk scores, we can understand the level of risk in the western United States. This highlights the magnitude of risk that exists across the nation and shows how much could be lost to wildfires if nothing is done.
Figure 1: A map of residential properties with a moderate or greater wildfire risk score throughout the western United States.
The CoreLogic Wildfire Risk Score provided the results presented in this section. The model offers a deterministic evaluation that quantifies wildfire hazard at each individual parcel in the U.S. based on factors such as slope, aspect, fuel, surface composition, drought, and winds. The scores in this analysis reflect the current risk landscape as of June 2024.
There are over 2.6 million homes are at moderate or greater risk with a combined reconstruction cost value of 1.2 trillion dollars in the western U.S. this year. Approximately 1.2 million homes, nearly half of the homes with elevated wildfire risk (e.g., moderate and above), have very high wildfire risk. If every single home with very high wildfire risk was destroyed, it would cost over half of a trillion dollars to rebuild completely.
Homes At-risk by Risk Category
Figure 2: The number of homes at-risk by risk category throughout the nation and their respective reconstruction cost value.
Number of Homes at Moderate or Greater Risk
CALIFORNIA - $769.4B
COLORADO - $140.9B
TEXAS - $88.4B
OREGON - $45.3B
ARIZONA - $36.2B
IDAHO - $34.9B
NEW MEXICO - $34.7B
UTAH - $32.3B
MONTANA - $31.3B
WASHINGTON - $20.9B
NEVADA - $14.7B
SOUTH DAKOTA - $8.4B
WYOMING - $5.7B
OKLAHOMA - $0.4B
Table 1: The number of homes with moderate or higher risk by state and their respective reconstruction cost value.
California, Colorado, and Texas lead all other modeled states in terms of the number of homes with elevated wildfire risk. These states contain a high number of homes in the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) where there is elevated risk due to their proximity to forested or undeveloped areas.
Figure 3: A map of residential properties and their wildfire risk score in California. - click to enhance
Figure 4: A map of residential properties and their wildfire risk score in Texas. - click to enhance
Figure 5: A map of residential properties and their wildfire risk score in Colorado - click to enhance
Figure 6: A map of residential properties and their wildfire risk score in the Los Angeles, Denver, and Austin metropolitan areas. - click to enhance
The Los Angeles metropolitan area leads the nation in number of homes at-risk, with over 245 thousand homes with moderate or greater risk, representing a reconstruction cost value of over $186 billion.
Ten of the top 15 metropolitan areas in the nation in terms of wildfire risk concentration are located in California (Table 2).
Metro Analysis
Table 2: The number of homes with moderate or higher risk by metropolitan area and their respective reconstruction cost value.