Hot, Dry Weather on the Way — Cities & Wildfire Risk
Published May 28, 2024 at 9:23 AM · News Releases and Bulletins
CoreLogic did an analysis of wildfire threats in the U.S.
The five cities that are most threatened by wildfire in the summer of 2024 are in the PIA Western Alliance state of California. Of the top 15 most threatened cities, 10 are in PIA Western Alliance state of California and one is in the PIA Western Alliance state of Oregon.
CoreLogic noted that while the number of wildfires per year is dropping, the intensity — and damages from those fires — is not. Tom Jeffery Ph.D. wrote the report for CoreLogic. He said in the last 30 years, the size of wildfires has tripled.
“While the number of fires per year is in decline, the increasing size and intensity of those fires is creating more property damage than ever before,” he wrote in the report.
From January to April of 2024, a staggering 1.75 million acres have burned in the U.S. Most of that is due to the wildfire in Texas that burned over 1 million acres. As with most wildfires, experts are saying it was caused by a power pole’s failure.
Jeffery’s report says most of the high-risk areas are in states with large housing shortages. So, the fix is usually to build in the wildland-urban interface. If that’s what these cities are forced to do, then more thoughtful planning needs to be done to prevent wildfires.
However, that won’t likely be enough to prevent more serious fires in the future.
“Even when the division between high-risk areas and development is clearly defined, embers blown from burning vegetation onto and into homes can stretch a fire’s threat farther into the urban zone,” Jeffery’s report notes. “Embers are responsible for an estimated 90 percent of home ignitions caused by wildfire. There have been instances of embers igniting residences up to a half mile or more from an actual fire.”
Here are the top-5 at risk cities in the U.S. All five are in the PIA Western Alliance state of California:
1. Los Angeles, California
Properties at risk: 185,763
Value of the at-risk properties: $143.3 billion
2. Riverside, California
Properties at risk: 166,375
Value of the at-risk properties: $86.6 billion
3. San Diego, California
Properties at risk: 123,060
Value of the at-risk properties: $75.6 billion
4. Sacramento, California
Properties at risk: 91,475
Value of the at-risk properties: $53.2 billion
5. San Francisco, California
Properties at risk: 56,985
Value of the at-risk properties: $40.2 billion
Other cities at risk in The PIA Western Alliance states:
6. Oxnard, California
Properties at risk: 39,918
Value of the at-risk properties: $27.4 billion
9. Truckee, California
Properties at risk: 43,674
Value of the at-risk properties: $20.9 billion
11, Santa Rosa, California
Properties at risk: 23,920
Value of the at-risk properties: $15.8 billion
12. Salinas, California
Properties at risk: 18,380
Value of the at-risk properties: $13 billion
13. Redding, California
Properties at risk: 28,271
Value of the at-risk properties: $11.4 billion
14. Bend, Oregon
Properties at risk: 24,755
Value of the at-risk properties: $10.2 billion
Source link: Carrier Management — https://bit.ly/3Vj8rcA