Wildfire hazards are a scorching reality, as they can destroy homes and land cover with incredible speed. Given the right conditions, a small spark or campfire can rapidly swell into a wildfire that will gobble everything in its path.
HazardHub provides a number of datasets around the peril of fire. We not only tell you the risk of an area, we provide the most complete fire station and fire hydrant data avaiable.
HazardHub Wildfire Model
The HazardHub Wildfire Model is revolutionizing wildfire risk analysis for the USA. Not more reliance on outdated (and non-predictive) data elements like slope and aspect – HazardHub combines a number of proprietary data elements to provide the best, most cost-effective tool for understanding wildfire risk for a property.
Unlike competing systems, the HazardHub Wildfire Model is not a “black box” that leaves you grasping for how to explain the results to your underwriters, regulators, and – most importantly – your customers.
HazardHub provides three main outputs with our model:
- HazardHub Wildfire Risk Grade – A simplified, “A-F” assessment of wildfire risk. Just like your report card, A’s are great and F’s are not.
- HazardHub Wildfire Risk Score – Our grades are actually roll-ups of our Wildfire Risks Scores, a scaled score that provides incredible precision at the property level.
- HazardHub Wildfire Components – Here’s where we really differentiate ourselves from the competition – we provide you ALL of the elements we used to build the score. You can use these components to explain why a score is what it is, or even to build your own custom wildfire algorithm!
The HazardHub Wildfire Model provides unprecedented clarity in identifying risk with a difference of 100 – 1 between the highest and lowest risk areas.
Plus, the HazardHub Wildfire Model is national – we cover every state in the USA. California wildfire. Texas wildfire. Washington wildfire. Florida wildfire. New Jersey wildfire. You name it, we cover it.
National Fire Station Database
Having a fire station nearby is a key element in making sure a property can survive a fire.
Our National Fire Station database contains more than 54,000 fire station locations, each of which has been hand-examined for both positional accuracy and equipment capacity. We monitor hundreds of websites to determine stations that have opened, closed, or moved, then publish any changes every single month.
In many areas of the country, road networks can be tricky. So the nearest station (via straight line distance) might not be able to get to your property quickly. This is especially true in both rural areas and places with a lot of lakes and other things that interrupt the road network.
The HazardHub API pulls in the nearest 5 stations, then shows the drive distance to the nearest three stations, providing the highest level of accuracy currently available.
HazardHub Property Fire Score
Property Fire Score leverages the power of two databases unique to HazardHub – a national Fire Station Database of over 54,000 stations and HydrantHub, the largest collection of fire hydrants in the country. For areas without hydrants, HazardHub accesses their high-resolution perennial water database. When combined with road network analysis, PFS delivers an expected loss percent and value for any property in the US.
Property Fire Score recognizes one key factor that competing systems completely miss – speed to the fire is a critical factor in extinguishing that fire. PFS is the only system that uses drive time network analysis as a key component of a fire risk score. Modern, open-air construction and newer, more flammable materials make speed to the fire more critical than ever. This is true for both homes and businesses, as cavernous openings create faster, hotter fires.
Comparisons of PFS to areas that are considered the best by competing systems show that these single-score areas can have 3x the difference in risk from one property to another.
AAIS Fire Protection Class
Since the late 1970s, the AAIS method allowed insurers to place a risk in one of three fire protection classifications:
- Protected – buildings located within 1,000 feet of a fire hydrant and within five road miles of a responding fire department. Protected is further broken down by how far a property is from a station, with values of P1 (within 1 mile) thru P5 (within 5 miles)
- Partially Protected – buildings located more than 1,000 feet from a fire hydrant but within five road miles of a responding fire department. Partially Protected is further broken down by how far a property is from a station, with values of PP1 (within 1 mile) thru PP5 (within 5 miles)
- Unprotected – buildings that are not classified as Protected or Partially Protected. HazardHub also provides the distance to the nearest fire station, with values ranging from U6 (within 6 miles) to U40 (within 40 miles)
HydrantHub Fire Hydrant Locations
Distance to the nearest fire hydrant is a key variable in determining the fire department’s ability to fight a property fire. It’s not only important to be close to a hydrant, but it’s also important to have a strong network of hydrants nearby.
With over 11.2 million fire hydrant locations, HydrantHub is the largest collection of known fire hydrant locations in the United States. We collect data from hundreds of sources. We also have a team of dedicated “hydrant hunters” who drive the streets of those places that do not publish their hydrant locations.
HydrantHub provides two key variables –
- Distance to the nearest fire hydrant – Under 250 ft, 250 – 500 Ft, 500 – 1000 Ft, 1000 – 1500 Ft
- Number of hydrants within 1000′ of a property
Better yet, we’re constantly adding hydrants to HydrantHub -including small towns across America that might get overlooked by other companies.
Want to see it put to use? Check out this case study!
