$41 billion in U.S. residential property at ‘very high risk’ of wildfire: report

The Western United States has more than 268,000 residential properties, with structural values exceeding US$41 billion, at very high risk of wildfire, according to a recent report from database provider CoreLogic Inc.

CoreLogic Wildfire Hazard Risk Report: Residential Wildfire Exposure Estimates for the Western United States 2013 provides several case studies and analyzes properties for their risk to damage from wildfires.

Using its database on properties, CoreLogic evaluated risk based on fuel, terrain and vegetation characteristics. Based on the results, risks for locations were divided into low, moderate, high and very high categories. CoreLogic then assigned risk scores of 1 to 100, where below 50 indicates very little to no wildfire risk for the property.

There are now 1.262 million residential properties in the Western U.S. “that are currently located in high or very high wildfire-risk categories, valued at more than $189 billion,” CoreLogic noted in the report.

It included tables for 13 states in the Western U.S., indicating the number and value or properties at risk, by very high, high, moderate and low. It also included tables indicating the risk scores. For example, in the 1 to 50 range, there were 29.5 million properties with a total estimated structural value of US$4.46 trillion.

Broken down by region, in the “very high” risk category, there were 145,361 properties with a combined value of US$22 billion in the Southern Rockies and South Central U.S. (which encompasses Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Colorado). In the Desert and Pacific Southwest (which encompasses Arizona, Nevada, California and Utah), there were 87,922 properties at very high risk of wildfire, with a total value of US$14.529 billion.

The other states included in the report were Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming.

Broken down by state, Colorado had the highest number of properties (83,174) assessed at very high risk, with a total value of $15.2 billion. California had 72,796 and Texas had 54,463 properties in areas assessed as being at very high risk of a wildfire.

There is a “heightened risk” of wildfires this year in southern California due to “exceptionally low” wildfire activity in 2010 and 2011, when just over 100,000 acres burned in each of those two years, CoreLogic noted in the report. Those relatively cool and wet years promoted growth of vegetation.

“Elsewhere in the west, Colorado is expected to see some improvement in the drought conditions that led to record-setting wildfires in 2012, yet most of the state is projected to have persistent or intensifying drought through October.”

In the report, CoreLogic also included details on seven metropolitan areas: Los Angeles; San Diego; Boulder, Colo.; Austin, Tex.; Albuquerque, N.M.; Salt Lake City and Prescott, Ariz. For those areas, CoreLogic used properties in the Core-Based Statistical Areas (as defined by the federal Office of Management and Budget), rather than within the city limits.

The Los Angeles CBSA had 9,110 “very high risk” properties with a combined total structural value of US$1.18 billion. Boulder had 6,039 very high-risk properties valued at a total of $1.22 billion. Prescott, with a population of 40,000, had 2,956 very high risk properties with a combined value of US$336 million.