Banner Mountain Lookout Firewise Community

The risk scores and regional comparisons shown above are derived from advanced geospatial fire-behavior modeling frameworks developed by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and the First Street Foundation.

Rather than relying purely on historic fire footprints, these models use high-resolution satellite imagery (at a 30-meter landscape scale) to map actual localized vegetation density, topography (slope steepness), and historic weather patterns over the last decade. Computer simulations run more than 100 million predictive “Monte Carlo” wildfire events across the country to observe how fires behave, how fast they travel up terrain, and how far wind-driven ember showers are likely to spread.

When applied to our specific Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) corridor, these simulations calculate an annualized baseline probability of a major ignition. Because fire risk accumulates over time, individual annual chances compound into the multi-year risk horizons used to build these models, helping our community plan proactive fuel reduction and home-hardening efforts accordingly.