US Counties With the Lowest Expected Yearly Wildfire Loss
3,144 US counties ranked by expected yearly wildfire loss, from lowest to highest. First are Aleutians West Census Area, AK (0), Bronx County, NY (0.000279) and New York County, NY (0.000487). The middle one of the 3,144 has 0.599.
What this measures
The damage wildfires are expected to do to buildings in an average year, in dollars for every $100,000 that the buildings are worth. FEMA works it out from a national map of how likely land is to burn and how much damage past fires did. Source: FEMA National Risk Index.
For most measures, a national ranking mostly sorts places by income and by how urban they are. Each county’s own page compares it with the 50 counties most like it instead, which is often the fairer view.
The 100 lowest counties
Every state, lowest first
Each state’s own published figure, not an average of its counties.
| Rank | State | $ per $100,000 of buildings |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | District of Columbia | 0.00256 |
| 2 | Illinois | 0.0149 |
| 3 | Rhode Island | 0.0178 |
| 4 | Connecticut | 0.0332 |
| 5 | New York | 0.0349 |
| 6 | Indiana | 0.0395 |
| 7 | Pennsylvania | 0.0463 |
| 8 | Ohio | 0.0477 |
| 9 | Massachusetts | 0.0493 |
| 10 | Vermont | 0.0697 |
| 11 | Maine | 0.0793 |
| 12 | Wisconsin | 0.0859 |
| 13 | Michigan | 0.0922 |
| 14 | New Hampshire | 0.117 |
| 15 | Maryland | 0.19 |
| 16 | Tennessee | 0.219 |
| 17 | Virginia | 0.237 |
| 18 | Delaware | 0.265 |
| 19 | Missouri | 0.459 |
| 20 | Iowa | 0.467 |
| 21 | West Virginia | 0.472 |
| 22 | North Carolina | 0.541 |
| 23 | Georgia | 0.571 |
| 24 | Louisiana | 0.618 |
| 25 | New Jersey | 0.627 |
| 26 | Alabama | 0.652 |
| 27 | Kentucky | 0.698 |
| 28 | Minnesota | 0.772 |
| 29 | South Carolina | 1.16 |
| 30 | Mississippi | 1.67 |
| 31 | Arkansas | 1.87 |
| 32 | Texas | 2.41 |
| 33 | Florida | 2.69 |
| 34 | Nebraska | 4.42 |
| 35 | North Dakota | 5.49 |
| 36 | Kansas | 6.35 |
| 37 | Oklahoma | 6.43 |
| 38 | Washington | 11.3 |
| 39 | Oregon | 13.4 |
| 40 | South Dakota | 13.5 |
| 41 | Alaska | 17.1 |
| 42 | Hawaii | 17.3 |
| 43 | Wyoming | 17.4 |
| 44 | Arizona | 17.9 |
| 45 | Colorado | 19.4 |
| 46 | New Mexico | 24.6 |
| 47 | California | 24.7 |
| 48 | Montana | 25.8 |
| 49 | Nevada | 26.7 |
| 50 | Idaho | 37.4 |
| 51 | Utah | 37.4 |
More on expected yearly wildfire loss
- US Counties With the Highest Expected Yearly Wildfire Loss
- Expected yearly wildfire loss by US county: map by year and what it goes with
A ranking describes places, not the people in them, and a high or low place does not by itself say why. All US rankings.