From Maps to Metrics: Why Wildfire Risk Needs Property-Level Analytics
Wildfire risk has traditionally been mapped at broad scales — counties, ZIP codes, even regions. These maps help visualize patterns, but they miss what matters most: how risk changes from one property to the next. In reality, wildfire exposure is hyper-local . A house on a hilltop surrounded by grassland can face a completely different threat than one a few hundred feet downslope, shaded by vegetation or separated by a roadway. Yet both often share the same “risk zone” in conventional datasets. That gap between broad models and local reality is where decisions can go wrong. ZIP-code averages may be enough for summaries, but they blur the small-scale differences that influence losses, mitigation planning, and long-term resilience. Moving Beyond the ZIP Code Property-level analytics change the perspective. Instead of one color on a regional map, each point becomes its own data record — capturing how terrain, vegetation, and surrounding context interact ...