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Areas of the U.S. wildland–urban interface threatened by wildfire during the 2001–2010 decade

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Abstract

The wildland–urban interface (WUI) is defined in terms of housing density and proximity to wildlands, yet its relevance seems to be only in conjunction with wildland fire threats. The objective of this paper is to (1) identify the WUI areas threatened from wildfire during the 2000’s and (2) quantify the values that were threatened. We use 1 km fire detection data generated using MODIS satellite imagery over a 10-year period combined with population densities to identify threatened areas of the WUI. We then use data on structures, structure content, and population to identify the people and property threatened from identified fires within the WUI. We find that 6.3 % of the U.S. population (17.5 million) resided within these areas and that 2.1 % of the population lived in WUI areas where more than one fire has occurred. However, we find that only a third of the affected population was threatened during daytime hours, as most leave the threatened portion of the WUI during peak ignition hours. The threatened area comprised 4.1 % of the coterminous USA and 44.9 % of the WUI. Within these areas were 7.8 million residential, commercial, industrial, governmental, religious, and educational structures, with a building and building content value estimated at $1.9 trillion. Overall, 7.3 % of residential structures in the USA were found within the WUI with wildfire activity; however, for some states, this number was as high as 25.4 %.

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Notes

  1. Suburban area is defined as the metropolitan area outside the central city (Hobbs and Stoops 2002).

  2. For instance, the Old, Grand Prix, and Padua Complex in 2003 resulted in 787 total and 3,860 partial loss claims (Western Forestry Leadership Coalition 2010).

  3. For instance, the Painted Cave fire, for example, burned 479 homes within a few hours, and the Laguna Hills fire burned 366 homes in 5 h (Cohen 2000).

  4. WUI GIS downloaded from SILVIS Lab, Department of Forest Ecology and Management, University of Wisconsin-Madison, on May 9, 2007.

  5. Other WUI definitions exist. For a discussion of their merits and implications, see Stewart et al. (2009).

  6. The Federal Register (2001) identified at-risk communities; however, the identified communities were nominated by states, and not by a consistent procedure (Theobald and Romme 2007).

  7. The Federal Register (2001) defines the interface as: “The Interface Community exists where structures directly abut wildland fuels.”

  8. The Federal Register (2001) defines the intermix as: “The Intermix Community exists where structures are scattered throughout a wildland area.”

  9. Population of the contiguous USA.

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  1. Applied Economics Office, Engineering Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD, USA

    Douglas S. Thomas & David T. Butry

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  1. Douglas S. Thomas
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  2. David T. Butry
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Correspondence to Douglas S. Thomas.

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Thomas, D.S., Butry, D.T. Areas of the U.S. wildland–urban interface threatened by wildfire during the 2001–2010 decade. Nat Hazards 71, 1561–1585 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-013-0965-7

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