In 2014 wildfires in the United States burned about 3.6 million acres, the second-lowest total acreage burned in the past 10 years. The year was second only to 2013 in number of U.S. wildfires. Last year also saw the largest fire ever in Washington state, where the Carlton Complex fire burned more than 250,000 acres and destroyed 322 homes.

Among the 11 western states detailed in CoreLogic’s 2015 report on wildfire risk, the state with the most properties categorized as being at High or Very High risk of wildfire is California, followed by Texas and Colorado. In terms of potential dollar damage, the total reconstruction value for the more than 305,000 properties in California is $105 billion. Rebuilding the 297,000 properties in Texas would cost $55 billion, and the 100,000 properties in Colorado would cost $28 billion to reconstruct.

And the closer a property is to both a city and to potential wildfire landscape (the so-called urban-wildland interface) the higher the estimates go. In California, for example, the reconstruction value of all urban properties (which have Low risk value) totals $2.78 trillion. In the San Francisco Bay area, there are more than 5,800 properties in the core-based statistical area that are identified as located in the areas of highest risk for wildfire. The total reconstruction value of these properties is more than $2.7 billion. In 1991 a wildfire burned through the city of Oakland and destroyed more than 3,000 homes and caused more than $1.5 billion in damage in one of the costliest U.S. wildfires on record.

In the San Antonio, Texas, metropolitan area, there are more than 31,000 homes in the highest risk group, with a combined reconstruction value of more than $7 billion. In the Denver metro area, some 35,000 homes with a replacement value of more than $10 billion are in High or Very High risk areas.

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