A new report on wildfires and risk in Western states says Idaho has nearly 4,000 homes considered to be at very high risk of burning in a potential fire. The report was compiled by California-based CoreLogic and looked at potential threats in 13 states.
CoreLogic created four risk levels and then estimated how many homes exist in each. The numbers for Idaho are as follows: Low: 20,192; Moderate: 11,894; High: 6,706; and Very High: 3,927.
All together, nearly 740,000 Western homes are considered at high or very-high risk.
The study also assigns a dollar figure for potential damage. Researchers estimate Idaho properties wildfire-prone areas are worth nearly $7.5 billion.
The states with the most properties considered at-risk are California, Colorado and Texas. Researchers also looked at the urban areas of Los Angeles, San Diego, Boulder, CO, Austin, TX, Albuquerque, NM and Salt Lake City. Of those, Boulder had the most homes considered to be at very high risk.
The report says more homes are at risk than ever before, after decades of home building in areas where cities and wilderness meet. Researchers estimate 17 million new homes were built in the so-called Wildland Urban Interface between 1990 and 2008.
You can read CoreLogic's summary of the report here.