100 Years of Californian Wildfires

In the last 123 years the equivalent of 33.8% of California has burned in wildfires. The Huffington Post has used data from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection’s Fire and Resource Assessment Program to map out more than a century of California wildfires.

This Is What More Than A Century Of Wildfires In California Looks Like includes an interactive map which visualizes the scale of damage caused to California by wildfires over the years. The map shows how 40% of the total acreage burnt in the last 123 years has actually occurred in just the last 20 years. Using a story map format the visualization continues to show the size of California's three largest fires. All of California's top three largest fires have taken place this century.


The largest Californian wildfire in the last 123 years occurred in 2018. In 2018 nearly 20,000 homes in California were lost and more than 100 people were killed by wildfires. According to analysis by the LA Times one in ten buildings in California are in the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection's highest-risk fire zones.

In A million California buildings face wildfire risk the LA Times has created a series of hexagon density maps showing the concentration of buildings in severe fire hazard zones. This series starts with a map showing the areas in California with the largest concentration of endangered homes. It continues with individual maps showing the areas with the largest concentration of fire risk buildings in and around Los Angeles, San Diego and the San Francisco Bay Area.

The LA Times article also has an interactive map which shows the location of every one of California's 8,900 very severe hazard zones. The LA Times says that the total number of at risk homes in California is likely to be more than 114,000.