Wildfire risk to western U.S. property pegged at $136 billion

More than 740,000 properties in 13 states across the western United States. fall into the high risk category for wildfire damage, representing a total property value estimate at over $136 billion, according to information and analytics service firm CoreLogic.

The firm assigns a numeric risk score ranging from one to 100 for susceptibility to wildfire, putting 168,000 homes into the “very high risk” category with a projected value of more than $32 billion.

“Over the last two decades, wildfire has been responsible for billions of dollars of property damage. Wildfires dominated news headlines in 2011, and again this summer, they have been responsible for record-setting property destruction across a swath of states spanning the West, from Colorado to Idaho to Washington,” said Dr. Howard Botts, vice president and director of database development for CoreLogic Spatial Solutions.

The 2012 CoreLogic Wildfire Hazard Risk Report examines 13 states in the western U.S. (Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Wyoming and Washington), six cities (Los Angeles, Calif; San Diego, Calif; Boulder, Colo; Austin, Texas; Albuquerque, N.M. and Salt Lake City, Utah), and top ZIP Codes at risk within each metro area.

CoreLogic found that the states most commonly associated with wildfires contain the most properties at risk. California, Colorado and Texas had the largest number of properties categorized as very high risk, with a combined property value exceeding $20 billion. Adding the homes located in the high risk category increases the total property value at risk to more than $62 billion. California contains a total of 49,258 homes at very high risk, with another 48,901 and 28,490 in Colorado and Texas respectively.