Wildfire Risk Maps Are Broken. Here's the Data Behind the Crisis.

Content:

In 2025, wildfires burned over 6.8 million acres in the United States. That's an area larger than Connecticut.

Yet most property listing sites show zero wildfire risk data. Zillow? Zero. Redfin? Zero. Even many insurance company portals? Nothing.

The data exists — it's just scattered:

• USFS (U.S. Forest Service) — Fire Behavior Fuel Data
• FEMA — Wildfire Hazard Threat Index
• First Street Foundation — Fire Score model
• State fire agencies — individual risk assessments

None of them offer a developer-friendly API. None of them give you a single risk score for a specific address.

We aggregated everything into one endpoint.

The ProtectMyZip API returns wildfire risk data including:

• Wildfire hazard score (0-100 scale)
• USFS fuel model classification
• Historical fire perimeters within 5/10/25 miles
• Vegetation density and fuel load data
• State wildfire agency risk designation

Highest-risk states (based on combined federal data):

1. California — 2.2M structures at risk
2. Texas — 1.1M structures (surprised?)
3. Colorado — 780K structures
4. Idaho — 420K structures
5. Arizona — 390K structures

Insurance companies already use this data. State Farm, Allstate, and Farmers all incorporate wildfire risk into pricing. The question is: should homebuyers see it too?

Try it:

GET /api/hazards?address=789+Pine+Ridge+Rd,+Malibu,+CA
→ "wildfire": { "score": 87, "risk_level": "extreme", "historical_fires_5mi": 3 }

🔗 check wildfire risk for any US location

Hot take: Any property listing without wildfire risk data is incomplete. Agree or disagree?