39% of Utah Homes Face High Fire Risk—More Than Other Western States

More Than a Third of Utah Homes Face High Fire Risk—A Bigger Share Than Other Western States

39% of homes are in danger of burning in Utah—the country’s fastest growing state—compared with less than 10% in California, Washington and Oregon. In dollar terms, California has the most real estate in jeopardy, with $628 billion of homes facing high fire risk.

In Utah—America’s fastest growing state—two of every five homes (39.4%) face high fire risk. That’s a larger share than any other Western U.S. state analyzed by Redfin. Colorado and Idaho came in second and third place, with 19% and 14.4% of properties at high risk, respectively. Less than 10% of homes in the following states have high risk: Oregon, Nevada, California, Washington and Arizona.

That’s according to a Redfin analysis of county property records and risk scores from climate-data startup ClimateCheck. In this report, we focus on eight of the 11 states in the contiguous U.S. West: Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Washington. The remaining three—Montana, Wyoming and New Mexico—are excluded due to insufficient data, but still face substantial fire risk.

Fires have ravaged the U.S. in recent years as climate change has intensified, leading to warmer temperatures, drought and shifting rain and snow patterns. Last year, 58,950 wildfires burned 10.1 million acres—the second-most acreage during any year since at least 1983, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. As of June 29, 2021, there were 47 large, active fires burning across the Western U.S., 17 of which were in Arizona.

The start of this year’s fire season coincides with an historic drought and staggering heat waves that have plagued dozens of Western cities. It hit 116 degrees Fahrenheit in Portland, OR on Monday, which broke the previous record of 112 set on Sunday. Sunday’s record broke the 108-degree high set on Saturday, which surpassed the prior 107-degree record set in 1965.

Fire-Risk Summary of Western U.S. States

Statistics in the table below are as of March 31, 2021, unless otherwise noted.

Share of homes facing high fire risk Number of homes facing high fire risk Dollar value of homes facing high fire risk (as of June 25, 2021) Number of fires (2020)* Acres burned (2020)*
Utah 39.4% 411,052 $218,967,436,370 1,493 329,735
Colorado 19.0% 385,952 $222,169,946,674 1,080 625,357
Idaho 14.4% 63,399 $18,676,468,754 944 314,352
Oregon 8.5% 113,825 $55,514,066,830 2,215 1,141,613
Nevada 7.4% 95,283 $68,075,490,214 770 259,275
California 6.7% 722,743 $627,673,338,397 10,431 4,092,151
Washington 4.8% 132,111 $51,776,013,811 1,646 842,370
Arizona 2.7% 66,182 †N/A 2,524 978,568

*Source: National Interagency Fire Center
Home-value data is not available for Arizona because Redfin’s home-value estimates don’t overlap with Arizona’s high-fire-risk areas

While Utah doesn’t rank at the top of the list in terms of number of fires or acreage burned, it has a relatively high share of properties at risk—likely because the state’s most populous cities overlap with its most at-risk areas. As shown in the map below, much of the state’s high fire risk lies in and around Salt Lake City, West Valley City and Provo—Utah’s three largest cities. By comparison, only one of Washington’s three most populous cities—Spokane—overlaps with substantial fire risk.

The development of Salt Lake City dates back to 1847, when Mormons settled there to escape persecution in Illinois. The area and surrounding towns continued to expand as the Mormon community grew, and as the gold rush, the mining industry and the construction of a major railroad brought more people to the region.

Utah has been growing faster than any other U.S. state, with a population that surged 18.4% to 3.3 million from 2010 to 2020. Idaho, which also faces substantial fire risk, came in second place. More than a third (35.7%) of Redfin.com home searches in the Salt Lake City metropolitan area came from outside of the metro in the first quarter, up from 26.8% a year earlier.

“Salt Lake City proper is relatively insulated from fires because it’s located in a valley, but much of the mountainous area surrounding it—especially the Wasatch Range to the east and the north—is covered with dry vegetation that’s prone to burning. A lot of people live in these mountains or right up against them,” said Ryan Aycock, Redfin’s market manager in Salt Lake City. “Many of the homes in Wasatch Range are farm communities or cabins, but there are also luxury homes at risk in Park City, a resort town that’s been very popular during the pandemic. Park City is a mix of vacation and primary homes, but we’ve recently seen an increase of families coming in from Seattle, California and New York to buy primary homes because they can work from anywhere and want to be near great skiing and hiking.”

Park City isn’t alone. Other vacation and migration destinations, including Bend, OR, Boise, ID and Lake Tahoe, CA, have seen scores of remote workers move in who now face fire risk.

“For the most part, the buyers and sellers don’t seem too worried about fires. They’re more concerned about droughts and water shortages,” Aycock said. “We’ve had a lot of near misses in Utah—there will be a fire warning, and then the fire isn’t as bad as people feared. It’s a bit of a boy-who-cried-wolf situation. A lot of folks could be caught flat-footed if a major fire does hit their community. Anyone who’s considering moving to the area should read the local fire planning and evacuation guides and create their own plan of action so they’re prepared when fires hit.”

About two-thirds of adults in Utah believe global warming is happening, compared with about three-quarters of adults in California, Washington and Oregon, according to a 2020 study by Yale University.

In Dollar Terms, California Has the Most Housing in Danger, With Over $600 Billion of Properties at Risk

While Utah has the largest share of properties with high fire risk, California has the most property value in danger, with $628 billion worth of homes facing high fire risk. That’s because home values in California are relatively high. By comparison, Utah and Colorado have about $220 billion of homes with high risk, and the remaining states in this analysis have less than $75 billion of property at risk.

California is also the third largest state in terms of mileage and is the densest state in the West, meaning there are more homes that can burn. It has 722,743 homes with high fire risk—a larger number than the other states Redfin analyzed. In 2020, California faced 10,431 fires that burned 4.1 million acres—more fires and acreage than any other U.S. state. Almost 40% of the acreage that burned across the U.S. last year was in California. 

“Sellers who are in the market right now are rushing to get under contract because they know buyers may start rethinking their decisions when fire season worsens,” said Christopher Anderson, a Redfin real estate agent in Napa, CA, which has faced devastating wildfires in recent years. “But the truth of the matter is that once fire season ends, much of the fear fades away. We’ve seen a lot of people leave the area as wildfires have intensified, but they’re always replaced by new people who are willing to take the risk. Buyers do tend to have a preference for homes that have been fortified against fires because that means there’s one less task they have to deal with.”

Anderson continued: “One of the first things I tell people who are considering buying a home in the Napa area is that they need to get a quote for fire insurance. There are horror stories about buyers who are a week away from closing and find out their monthly fire-insurance premium will cost more than their monthly mortgage payment.”

Top Counties at Risk in the Western U.S.

Below are the five counties with the largest share of homes facing high fire risk in each of the following states: Utah, Washington, Colorado, Idaho, Oregon, California, Nevada and Arizona. To be included, a county must have had at least 150 homes facing high fire risk. Boxes marked with a “N/A” indicate there were no Redfin Estimates of home values in the corresponding counties.

Utah: Counties With Highest Share of Homes at Risk

Share of homes facing high fire risk Dollar value of homes facing high fire risk Number of homes facing high fire risk 
Rich County 96.9% $495,464,666 1,627
Summit County 95.1% $32,465,474,771 28,819
Wasatch County 94.6% $10,475,621,810 15,039
Morgan County 93.4% N/A 442
Juab County 78.1% N/A 1,083


Washington: Counties With Highest Share of Homes at Risk

Share of homes facing high fire risk Dollar value of homes facing high fire risk Number of homes facing high fire risk 
Okanogan County 83.4% $3,375,584,083 11,063
Ferry County 80.8% N/A 2,047
Lincoln County 78.1% $359,328,227 1,874
Douglas County 70.7% $3,179,555,065 7,447
Spokane County 45.2% $27,535,450,170 67,113


Colorado: Counties With Highest Share of Homes at Risk

Share of homes facing high fire risk Dollar value of homes facing high fire risk Number of homes facing high fire risk 
Elbert County 89.9% $5,056,825,342 8,460
Routt County 86.6% $14,031,780,783 14,773
Douglas County 66.2% $78,083,998,062 114,708
Eagle County 59.1% N/A 13,374
Rio Blanco County 51.0% N/A 779


Idaho: Counties With Highest Share of Homes at Risk

Share of homes facing high fire risk Dollar value of homes facing high fire risk Number of homes facing high fire risk 
Boise County 98.8% N/A 942
Bear Lake County 97.5% N/A 1,669
Adams County 95.4% N/A 999
Lincoln County 92.1% N/A 269
Caribou County 88.6% N/A 1,314


Oregon: Counties With Highest Share of Homes at Risk

Share of homes facing high fire risk Dollar value of homes facing high fire risk Number of homes facing high fire risk 
Gilliam County 92.8% N/A 722
Harney County 88.6% N/A 1,565
Wheeler County 85.5% N/A 359
Jefferson County 70.5% $543,219,498 1,357
Klamath County 64.2% $3,929,387,237 16,655

California: Counties With Highest Share of Homes at Risk

Share of homes facing high fire risk Dollar value of homes facing high fire risk Number of homes facing high fire risk 
Amador County 67.5% $3,050,032,475 6,850
Mariposa County 59.6% N/A 2,495
El Dorado County 54.0% $21,926,527,195 34,300
Calaveras County 53.4% $6,586,350,212 17,280
Nevada County 45.7% $19,615,406,228 25,101


Nevada: Counties With Highest Share of Homes at Risk

Share of homes facing high fire risk Dollar value of homes facing high fire risk Number of homes facing high fire risk 
Storey County 73.7% N/A 1,404
Eureka County 59.9% N/A 179
Douglas County 49.8% $21,532,492,504 20,387
Washoe County 35.1% $41,906,259,274 57,440
Carson City 30.0% $2,798,720,147 4,863

 

Arizona: Counties With Highest Share of Homes at Risk

Share of homes facing high fire risk Dollar value of homes facing high fire risk Number of homes facing high fire risk 
Coconino County 50.5% N/A 22,325
Gila County 46% N/A 11,478
Navajo County 43.7% N/A 14,774
Yavapai County 16.9% N/A 16,422
Pima County 0.09% $180,336,993 411

Methodology

Fire-risk data comes from ClimateCheck, whose underlying analysis is based on the MC2 dynamic global vegetation model that projects the average proportion of the area surrounding a home that will burn annually. ClimateCheck assigns six different fire-risk categories to properties across the U.S.—very low, low, moderate, high, very high, and extreme. For the purposes of this report, a “high-fire-risk” property is one that falls into the high, very high or extreme category. The fire-risk data in this report is as of March 31, 2021. 

We matched fire-risk data with county records for eight of the 11 states in the contiguous U.S. West. The remaining three states—Montana, New Mexico and Wyoming—are excluded from this analysis due to insufficient data. The value of homes at risk is the sum of the Redfin Estimates of the homes’ market values as of June 25, 2021. For the county tables, we show only those counties with at least 150 properties with high fire risk, and we also only show dollar values of homes facing high fire risk for those counties where Redfin Estimates has coverage.

Lily Katz

Lily Katz

As a data journalist, Lily is passionate about helping readers understand complex facets of the housing market. She is particularly interested in the issues of climate change, race and gender equality and housing affordability. Prior to working at Redfin, Lily spent four years as a reporter at Bloomberg News in New York City.

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Sebastian Sandoval-Olascoaga

Sebastian Sandoval-Olascoaga

Sebastian is a Ph.D. candidate in Urban Economics & Policy Analysis at MIT and the Summer ’21 Economist Intern at Redfin. At MIT, he focuses on understanding how the materialization of common or rare intense risks — i.e., shocks — affect the well-being of people, communities, and cities. His applied and theoretical work lies at the intersection of housing, climate change, health, and inequality.

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Sheharyar Bokhari

Sheharyar Bokhari

Sheharyar’s research focuses on better understanding the housing market for audiences inside and outside of Redfin. Prior to joining Redfin, he created commercial real estate sale and rental price indices at the MIT Center for Real Estate. He has also done research on consumer decisions and behavioral biases in real estate pricing. Sheharyar holds a PhD from MIT in Urban and Real Estate Studies.

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