2003 Southern California Fire Assessments: Fire Threat to Communities Tables

Pre-fire risk to communities defined by FRAP as having 1 house per 20 acres or greater density and within 2400 meters of High, Very High or Extreme threat as determined from fuel and fire occurrence history, in Acres.

Disclaimer

FRAP/RSL make no representations or warranties regarding the accuracy of data or maps. In particular, data relating to recently burned areas reflect generalized perimeters and represent coarse, preliminary assessments of the fire perimeters, and fire sizes, and may change or not correspond to other officially reported acreage. Areas close to, or inside of the perimeters represented here may or may not have actually burned. The user will not seek to hold either the Federal or State Government, nor the US Forest Service or CDF liable under any circumstances for any damages with respect to any claim by the user or any third party on account of or arising from the use of data or maps.

October 2003 Southern California Fires

Threat to Community	Density Class	Cedar	Grand Prix	Mountain	Old	Otay	Padua	Paradise	Piru	Roblar	Simi	All
Extreme Threat	Rural Residential	26,346	3,005	729	1,268	12	1,722	7,354	22	-	2,676	43,135
	Interface	14,834	2,385	42	1,090	264	645	1,003	10	-	1,557	21,829
	Urban	3,813	845	-	796	-	79	111	158	20	536	6,358
Very High Threat	Rural Residential	1,134	91	-	-	-	-	40	-	-	1,203	2,469
	Interface	971	59	-	32	-	35	-	-	-	94	1,191
	Urban	492	124	-	279	-	2	-	2	-	25	924
High Threat	Rural Residential	-	67	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	67
	Interface	15	-	-	2	-	-	-	-	-	-	17
	Urban	20	2	-	49	-	-	-	-	-	-	72
All	All	47,625	6,578	771	3,516	277	2,483	8,508	193	20	6,091	76,062

All Threat to Communities - Combined

Threat to Community	Density Class	Cedar	Grand Prix	Mountain	Old	Otay	Padua	Paradise	Piru	Roblar	Simi	All
All Threat	Rural Residential	27,481	3,163	729	1,268	12	1,722	7,393	22	-	3,880	45,670
	Interface	15,820	2,444	42	1,124	264	680	1,003	10	-	1,651	23,038
	Urban	4,324	971	-	1,124	-	82	111	161	20	561	7,354
All Threat	All	47,625	6,578	771	3,516	277	2,483	8,508	193	20	6,091	76,062

A total of 76 thousand acres of wildland interface (WUI) (approximately 10% of burned area) are with more than one house per 20 acres. Nearly all the WUI burned area was in the extreme fire threat class. About 60% of the burned area with homes had lots ranging from 5 to 20 acres in size. There are approximately 1.3 million acres of wildland urban interface land with extreme or very high fire threat in Southern California.

See http://frap.cdf.ca.gov/assessment2003/Assessment_Summary/forest_health_300.pdf pages 102-105 for background information on wildfire and assessment of risks to people and property.

For more information, please contact:

Dave Sapsis
Wildland Fire Scientist
CDF Fire and Resource Assessment Program (FRAP)
PO Box 944246
Sacramento, CA 94244-2460
916.445.5369
dave.sapsis@fire.ca.gov