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Evolving exposure: Lessons from the 2021 wildfire season

Fires jumping the Sierra Nevada mountains for the first time on record. Towering fire tornadoes. Hazy, ashen smog traveling thousands of miles to blanket the East Coast. Wildfires encroaching on tourist destinations and urban areas. The 2021 wildfire season may not have burned as many acres as 2020’s record-shattering devastation, but it was no less notable for its disruptive chaos.

Wildfires burning on a ridge with firefighters in foreground

The 2021 wildfire season may not have burned as many acres as 2020’s record-shattering devastation, but it was no less notable for its disruptive chaos.

2021 at a glance

A total of 54,000 fires scorched approximately 7.1 million acres in 2021, down from the 10.1 million acres that burned in 2020, and just slightly below the 10-year average of 7.3 million acres.

The 2021 season was remarkable in many respects:

A costly peril, compounded by reconstruction cost volatility

For many insurers, last year’s wildfires weren’t just novel, they were costly, resulting in an estimated $4 billion in losses, according to Property Claims Services®, a Verisk business. The challenge of the 2021 wildfire season was compounded by pandemic-induced supply chain disruptions and volatile reconstruction costs. Materials specifically experienced a large spike driven partially by lumber prices, which peaked in July 2021, according to Verisk reconstruction cost estimates.

As drought conditions in the western United States persist and climate change shifts seasonal snowmelt patterns and leads to drier vegetation, 2022 may not offer much reprieve.

In the face of this staggering challenge, mitigation efforts have become even more critical. Verisk has established several critical partnerships with organizations focused on wildfire mitigation, including the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) and the International Association of Fire Chiefs. Verisk offers granular data from these organizations to help insurers better understand community-level mitigation efforts.


Dr. Arindam Samanta

Dr. Arindam Samanta is director of product management at Verisk. He can be reached at Arindam.Samanta@verisk.com.


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