Wildfire risks are increasing throughout the world thanks to a combination of climate change and an expanding population of people settling in communities in or around wild spaces. The worst fire seasons on record have all occurred in recent years, and things are only projected to get worse as the effects of climate change become more pronounced.
In Rocky Mountain National Park, for example, more acreage burned between 2011 and 2019 than in all the previous century. (National Geographic, Feb 2019, p. 31) Even sequoia forests have been burning. With their 3 foot thick bark and canopies that reside 200 to 300 feet above the forest floor, these trees are normally resistant to wildfires, allowing them to live to be hundreds or even thousands of years old. Yet the intensity of forest fires is now putting them at risk as well.
An increase in wildfires is straining the resources used to fight fires all over the world. It used to be that a nation would borrow firefighting resources from other countries during the off season, but now there’s not much of an off season. “It’s relentless,” says Jonas Doherty, a pilot from Idaho who flies for an international firefighting company. “This is like a magnitude of five times what we’ve seen before.” The fire season now starts earlier and runs for longer. “It’s just one big fire season right now around the world,” says Wayne Coulson, chief executive of the firefighting company Coulson Group.
Wildfire risks & fire insurance policies
The wildfire risk has grown so extreme that insurers in many areas are refusing to underwrite new policies because their losses have grown so severe. A single fire can now wipe out decades of profits and drain a company’s piggy bank. When California’s property insurers saw 26 years worth of profit go up in smoke in the span of 24 months, it prompted them to begin dropping policies.
Wildfire risks are now expanding into new regions
Wildfires used to be a concern primarily for those who built their homes in the middle of the woods. That’s no longer the case. As wildfires have grown more intense and become harder to control, we’ve seen them burning down neighborhoods you would typically think of as suburban–rows of houses across many street blocks.
“The Tubbs fire, as it was called, shouldn’t have been possible,” writes Abrahm Lustgarten. “Coffey Park is surrounded not by vegetation but by concrete and malls and freeways. So insurers had rated it as ‘basically zero risk.'” (Lustgarten, 2020)
Climate change is also expanding the zone of places susceptible to extreme fire risks. As warmer average temperatures creep farther North (or south in the other hemisphere), these regions become dryer and hotter, creating the type of conditions that favor extreme wildfires. Places like Washington and North Dakota may become more like what California is today, with dryer vegetation acting like a tinder bundle that allows wildfires to burn out of control.
Assessing a home’s wildfire risks
So which homes are most at risk, and how can you determine your own home’s vulnerability? “If you really want to assess a home’s vulnerability, you[] have to look at weather, topography, and fire history for the given area,” says Steve Hawks, deputy chief of wildland fire prevention engineering for California’s Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. “What is the home made out of? How is it constructed? Does it have defensible space? Is there water available for fighting a fire? How close together are the neighboring homes? (See our pages on Building A Fire Resistant Home and Protecting Your Home from Wildfires for more information.)
Lack of spacing between houses can leave you just as susceptible as living in the middle of a forest. When houses are spaced close enough together, and with dry trees, fences, bushes, and other flammable material between them, suburban areas can essentially become a man-made forest. “You’ve probably seen aftermath photos where a fire has swept through a town and all the homes have burned, but there are still trees standing and green vegetation,” says wildfire specialist Max Moritz. “That’s what happens when the homes themselves are the fuel. It’s not a land management problem where you should have cleared more brush. You can’t thin the fuel because the homes were the fuel.” (Caperton-Morton, 2020)