The New Mexico and California fires may offer an ominous outlook for a growing swath of America.
Global warming is likely to be the reason for the increase in wildfire risk. In the last five years, 34% of the damage has occurred. According to a Yale University report, insured losses from the wildfires last year were $5 billion, marking the seventh year in a row that has seen insured losses exceed $2 billion.
New technology from a Brooklyn-based nonprofit, First Street Foundation, is mapping the threat with house-by-house specificity to help protect lives and property.
First Street assigns a wildfire risk score to factors in construction type, roof type, weather and exposure to natural fuels like trees and grass.
Matthew Eby is the founder and executive director of the First Street Foundation.
Certain homes may be more vulnerable due to their building materials, defensible space around them or the roof type. The company adjusts for projected climate change when it models the immediate risk to Americans.
We can use the power of the computer to model 100 million scenarios of wildfire today and another 100 million scenarios 30 years from now.
Every home is given a unique score by First Street. It put a flood score on every property on the home-selling website, and did the same for water threats. School district data on K-12 performance is the most clicked map on Realtor.com.
The reaction to the flood has been positive. Sara Brinton, lead project manager with the real estate website, said that it is helpful to be able to make informed decisions and understand what it is to protect your home.
Potential buyers and homeowners who find their flood and fire scores on Realtor.com can click a link for more information on First Street's site to find out how best to protect their homes.
On a monthly basis, we see tens of millions of impressions against our flood factor data.
According to a recent survey from HarrisX, more than 70% of recent homebuyers took natural disasters into account when considering where to move. Fifty percent of respondents said they were more concerned about natural disasters today than they were five years ago.
The First Street fire model pays particular attention to what it calls the "wildland urban interface", where housing developments butt up against wooded areas.
According to First Street, at least 10 million properties are at risk of wildfire. In places you might not expect, wildfire risk is doubling and jumping more than 200% in places like New Jersey, Massachusetts, Florida, Louisiana, Alabama and Arkansas.
That change explains why Nuveen Real Estate is buying the data to inform their investments.
The First Street data is helping us to understand how the building will be impacted. Jessica Long is head of sustainable for Nuveen's U.S. real estate portfolio.
The information can be used to help in buying a home, but it can also be used to protect one that they already own. Minor changes to reduce that risk can be informed by the fire score. It is easier to protect a home from wildfire than from flooding.
First Street's flood-score feature was met with concern that it would lower the value of homes with higher risk. Brinton said that there have been very few complaints, but that in a few places, homes are appreciated more slowly in areas with high flood-risk scores.
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