We think you should be able
to see your own risk.
Wildfirely gives US homeowners a free, independent estimate of the wildfire hazard at their address — where it comes from, what it means for their insurance, and the handful of changes that actually reduce both. No account, no email gate, and every number traceable to a public dataset.
The problem we built this for
Wildfire risk scoring is not new. What is new is that it now quietly decides whether ordinary people can insure their homes.
Carriers price, inspect and decline against catastrophe models — Verisk FireLine, ZestyAI Z-FIRE, CoreLogic — that most homeowners have never heard of and cannot inspect. You do not see the inputs. You do not see the weighting. You cannot check whether the model has your slope right, or thinks there is chaparral where your driveway is. For most people the first contact with any of it is a non-renewal letter with a 45-day clock attached.
By that point the useful options have mostly closed. Mitigation credit is applied when a policy is rated, so work finished after the letter arrives buys nothing for another year. The surplus lines market is thin and slow. And the person on the other end of the phone is working from a number you still cannot see.
What we actually do
You enter an address. We geocode it, run five live point queries against federal services, and return a 0–100 score with every contributing factor broken out, the fires that have burned within 25 miles since 2000, and what your band typically means at underwriting.
- Hazard from FEMA's National Risk Index at census-tract level.
- Fire history from NIFC's interagency perimeter record.
- Terrain from USGS 3DEP, sampled around the parcel to derive slope.
- Exposure from FEMA's annualised wildfire frequency.
- Fire weather from the National Weather Service forecast — the only part that moves daily.
Alongside that we run a live map of every large active US wildfire, every Red Flag Warning in force, and editorial coverage of the insurance and mitigation questions that follow. The full weighting is published, and every dataset is documented including where each one falls short.
What we hold ourselves to
Open data only
Every input is a public federal dataset. Nothing proprietary, nothing licensed, no API keys. That constrains us — it is why we cannot yet cover Canada or Europe — but it means you can follow any number here back to its source and check it yourself.
Published methodology, including the parts that make us look worse
A risk score you cannot inspect is worth very little, which is rather the point of this site existing. So the weighting is public, and so are the limitations. The largest one: no national dataset records roof class, vent type, or the state of the first five feet around a house, and those are among the strongest determinants of whether a home survives. We say so rather than implying more precision than we have.
We are not trying to frighten you
It would be easy to build this so everything reads red. We deliberately did not. The national danger dial is scaled against a busy-season reference and reads Low or Moderate most of the year, because a gauge pinned to Extreme for months tells you nothing. Where the honest answer is that your risk is low, we say that.
Corrections in public
If a value is wrong at your address — terrain and fire history are the usual suspects — tell us. We re-run the point and publish what we find. We would rather be corrected than be quietly wrong.
What we are not
| Not | Which means |
|---|---|
| An insurer, broker or licensed agent | We cannot sell, place or bind coverage, and nothing here is advice about your policy. A licensed agent in your state can help with that. |
| A government agency | We are independent, and not affiliated with or endorsed by FEMA, NIFC, USGS, NOAA or any other agency whose public data we use. |
| An emergency service | Our data lags the ground and we cannot see road closures or local orders. Never use this site to decide whether to evacuate. |
| Your insurer's model | Our score does not determine, predict or guarantee your insurability or your premium. It is an independent reference point. |
How we make money
The score is free and always will be. We earn through affiliate arrangements: if you ask to be matched with an insurance broker, or buy mitigation equipment through a link here, we may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Where a link earns us money, it is labelled.
What that never touches is the score. The model runs on federal data before any commercial consideration exists, and no partner can pay to change a risk band, move up a result, or have a page written about them. Because the weighting is published, that is a checkable claim rather than a promise. Our partner standards set out what we require of anyone we work with — licensing in every state they accept referrals in, and no cold calling, for a start.
Who this is for
Homeowners in fire country who have just been non-renewed and do not know what happens next. People considering a house in the wildland-urban interface who would like to know before they are committed. Anyone who has finished mitigation work and wants credit for it. And people who simply want to understand what the ridge behind them means.
Who writes this
Michael Phillips writes and researches everything on Wildfirely — the risk model, the insurance coverage, and the mitigation guidance. He works from the same public federal datasets the site publishes, and every figure here traces to a named source you can open and check.
We make no claim to professional fire-service credentials. What we do claim is that every number on this site comes from a named public dataset, and that you can follow it back to the source yourself. Where we are uncertain, we say so.
Find him on X.
The fine print
Our terms of use set out what the score is and is not, and the privacy policy covers exactly which third parties receive an address you enter. Longer pieces are on the blog.
Get in touch
Corrections, data questions, press and partnerships: contact us. Journalists — we will run custom queries for a story at no charge.