Lilliane Ballesteros, executive director of the Latino Community Fund in Washington, said Latinos in rural or farmworker communities in the central part of the state know what they risk living in a fire-prone area, but they often can’t afford to move. Estimates show that three decades from now, about 1 in 5 will face significant fire risk. Nearly 1 in every 4 Hispanic people will be living in similar communities. The Post’s analysis of First Street’s data found that wildfire danger appears to disproportionally affect communities of color.īy 2052, about 44 percent of all Native Americans will live in areas with significant probability of wildfire.

But of the more than 2,000 counties facing fire danger, only about 20 percent have experienced a FEMA-declared fire disaster since 2010. To be eligible for this Federal Emergency Management Agency funding, a county or state must first receive a major disaster declaration. Though President Biden has approved nearly $3.5 billion for communities to prepare for disasters related to extreme weather and climate change, only about 4 percent of all the counties facing fire exposure in this analysis have applied for wildfire mitigation projects. That number will probably grow to about 39 percent by 2052. The Post found that about 33 percent of people in Western states today face a significant chance of wildfire exposure. Western states bear a larger share of the risk, particularly in the Mountain West. “The small things that we could contain in the past may be very big ignitions in the future because you have these other effects,” Niemeier said. But it has seasonal fires that begin in early spring, part of a natural cycle that helps cone-bearing trees spread their seeds.ĭeb Niemeier, a University of Maryland environmental engineering professor who focuses on community resilience and post-disaster recovery, said that just as in the West, climate change is extending the Southeastern coastal region’s traditional fire season through baking temperatures and increasingly severe droughts. That might seem surprising, given Florida’s history of being battered by hurricanes and, more recently, tidal flooding driven by rising seas and intense storms. Nearly half of all Americans who live in areas vulnerable to fire will reside in the South, and minorities face a disproportionate risk.Īmong Southern states, Texas is at the top of the list, followed by Florida.

Over the next 30 years, that share will increase to 21 percent. In the next few decades, many people will face greater danger than they do now.Ī Washington Post analysis of the group’s data found that an estimated 16 percent of the country’s population today lives in hazardous areas. Nearly 80 million properties in the United States stand a significant chance of exposure to fire, according to a model built by the nonprofit First Street Foundation. The old rules no longer applied.Ī new analysis reveals for the first time that a broad swath of the country, not typically associated with wildfires, is already under threat. It didn’t matter that many of the more than 1,000 homes and other structures lost sat in suburban subdivisions, not forested enclaves. When a wildfire tore through drought-stricken towns near Boulder, Colo., late last year, it reminded Americans that fire risk is changing.

Map california fires