Wildfire

With at least seven lives lost and thousands of properties destroyed from raging wildfires, the summer of 2015 was one of terrible devastation for Northern California.

Fire. It’s a basic combination of three elements that surround us every day: heat, fuel, and oxygen.

In September 2015, two fires in Northern California—the Butte and Valley Fires—burned through nearly 147,000 acres and set 1,600 properties ablaze.

Almost 600 properties were damaged or destroyed as California’s Butte wildfire ripped through nearly 71,000 acres during the summer of 2015.

California's Valley Fire in Middletown, which blazed through 65,000 acres, could be one of the top five costliest in the state's history.

California leads U.S., with most households at high or extreme risk from wildfires, according to the 2015 Verisk Wildfire Risk Analysis.

New methodology for Public Protection Classification (PPC) grades will allow resurvey of nearly 48,000 communities every few years.

Neil Spector, president of Verisk Insurance Solutions, interviews Nick Coch, professor at Queens College on geology and natural disaster hazards.

More than 4.5 million households are at high or extreme risk from wildfire according to a 2013 Verisk Wildfire Risk Analysis.

Residents of El Paso County, site of the Black Forest fire, filed more than $365 million in claims, according to Verisk's Property Claim Services.