Learn about the data sources used to determine community wildfire risk.
Community Risk measures the threat wildfire poses to a community relative to other communities throughout the U.S. along four categories: Infrastructure (including emergency services, utilities, and transportation), Social services, Residential properties, and Commercial properties.
Wildfire Projections
The First Street Foundation Wildfire Model is used to determine burn probability and ember exposure to facilities and infrastructure in all four categories noted above. The Wildfire Model is a nationwide model that uses U.S. Federal Government open data as a basis, with additional data from a variety of sources to determine property-level wildfire risk assessments that account for changing environmental conditions to allow individuals, communities, businesses, and governments to understand and prepare for their wildfire risk. Use Risk Factor™ to find community-level wildfire risk assessments.
Data sources used to determine Community Risk
The data used to analyze the risk of infrastructures and roads come from a variety of public data sources. Property and land use data are supplied through a partnership with Lightbox. Road centerline data are sourced from the US Census Bureau’s TIGER data. Infrastructure facility data are from a variety of sources including the US Environmental Protection Agency.
Risk to public infrastructure
Infrastructure
- Power station: Homeland Infrastructure Foundation-Level Data (HIFLD)
- Wastewater treatment: The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR)
- Superfund Sites and Landfills: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
- Water outfall: The EPA's National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES)
- Fire stations: The Homeland Infrastructure Foundation-Level Data Working Group (HIFLD
- Police station: The Homeland Infrastructure Foundation-Level Data Working Group (HIFLD)
- Hospitals: The Homeland Infrastructure Foundation-Level Data Working Group (HIFLD)
- Port: The Homeland Infrastructure Foundation-Level Data Working Group (HIFLD)
- Airport: Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
- Hazardous waste: Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR)
- Solid waste landfill facilities: The Homeland Infrastructure Foundation-Level Data Working Group (HIFLD)
- Emergency medical service (EMS) stations: The Homeland Infrastructure Foundation-Level Data Working Group (HIFLD)
- Cellular towers: The Homeland Infrastructure Foundation-Level Data Working Group (HIFLD)
- Microwave service towers: The Homeland Infrastructure Foundation-Level Data Working Group (HIFLD)
- Power plants: The Homeland Infrastructure Foundation-Level Data Working Group (HIFLD)
- Natural gas processing plants: The Homeland Infrastructure Foundation-Level Data Working Group (HIFLD)
- Electric substations: The Homeland Infrastructure Foundation-Level Data Working Group (HIFLD)
Social risk
- Schools: Common Core of Data (CCD), National Center for Education Statistics (NCES ), United States Department of Education (ED)
- Historical buildings: The National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places (NIRS)
- Government buildings: The Homeland Infrastructure Foundation-Level Data Working group (HIFLD)
- Places of worship: The Homeland Infrastructure Foundation-Level Data Working group (HIFLD)
- Museums: Worldwide Database of University Museums and Collections (UMAC) compiled by the ICOM committee
Risk to residential and commercial properties
- Property parcels and land use type: Lightbox, sourced from county assessors and recorders
- Building footprints: Mapbox, sourced from Microsoft Bing and OpenStreetMaps
Levels available
- Neighborhoods: Encompasses macro neighborhoods, neighborhoods, sub-neighborhoods, and residential districts (e.g. subdivisions and apartment complexes). Data is provided by a third-party data provider.
- Zipcodes: are zip code tabulation groupings of local areas as provided by the U.S Census Bureau.
- Cities: Place (County Subdivision in New England) as provided by the US Census Bureau. Refer to a village, town, or city typically governed by a mayor and council.
- Counties: County or county-equivalents as provided by the US Census Bureau.
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