You know prescribed fire is a key practice for reducing wildfire risk, but how well do you understand wildfire risk in your community, or better yet, the wildfire risk to your existing home or the parcel of land you just picked for your dream build?
Those of you with experience in land and fire management may have a grip on these questions; however, it is clear that across much of the country, wildfire risk is only beginning to be considered in how our communities grow and how individuals make housing choices.
Wade Ross, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher at Tall Timbers from 2020 through the summer of 2024, is working to deliver actionable information on wildfire risk through wildfire modeling.
In August, Ross accepted a new position with First Street, a firm dedicated to sharing the connection between climate change and financial risk at scale for companies, governments, and communities.
“I’m excited to work at First Street because the company’s mission to quantify and communicate wildfire risk, particularly how these risks change with climate, aligns perfectly with my wildland fire science and remote sensing background,” explained Ross. “The chance to be part of a team that provides actionable solutions, helping businesses and communities make informed decisions and strengthen their resilience to climate impacts, truly resonates with me.”
While at Tall Timbers, one of Ross’s projects included research on the 2017 West Mims wildfire along the Georgia-Florida border to evaluate the effectiveness of prescribed fire treatments.
The study included strikingly clear findings that prescribed fire reduces wildfire burn severity when contrasted with areas not treated with prescribed fire. The study was then scaled up across Florida and Georgia to investigate how prescribed fire reduces damage to valued natural resources by mitigating wildfire severity in National Wildlife Refuges.
Wade Ross, past postdoctoral researcher with Tall Timbers, now works at First Street providing wildfire risk modeling services.
Ross said his time with Tall Timbers directly complements his new role at First Street, where they assess wildfire risk by evaluating fuel conditions, management practices like prescribed burns, and the impact of past wildfires on future fire probability. The First Street Wildfire Model incorporates property-specific fuel data and weather conditions, providing detailed risk assessments.
This is especially important within the expanding Wildland Urban Interface, where homes tend to be closer to native grasses and brush that can build up without prescribed fire and fuel wildfires.
“These types of risk modeling services allow home builders and buyers to start looking at wildfire risk and insurance implications as they make the big decisions to build and buy homes,” said John McGuire, Director of the Tall Timbers Private Lands Prescribed Fire Initiative.
McGuire has spent years working with the insurance industry to help retain and expand liability insurance options for private prescribed fire practitioners conducting burns on their land or as a business.
“Building more wildfire risk understanding among financial and insurance institutions is helpful for the future of prescribed fire use,” he said. “That can help build demand as more decision-makers recognize that it’s our best landscape scale option for reducing wildfire risk.”
Data-driven, peer-reviewed wildfire risk modeling also complements ecological restoration and wildlife management efforts nationwide. Bringing fire back to the land after it has been deliberately excluded for many years can be a tough sell when nearby communities believe their forests don’t burn. Fire researchers call this the “asbestos forest myth.”
Tall Timbers Research Director Morgan Varner has worked on the asbestos forest myth with collaborators around the country and has a paper coming out soon. Even in areas with longer periods between fires than our short return intervals in the Southeast, infrastructure and homes still have lifespans that expose them to wildfire risk. Reintroducing fire can help mitigate that risk while also restoring important wildlife habitat.
In September 2024, Zillow introduced First Street’s comprehensive climate risk data on for-sale listings across the US, including wildfire risk. This recent change is another step toward sharing wildfire risk evaluations with more decision-makers, including home buyers.
“I’m optimistic about the future because we’re seeing a growing awareness of the importance of understanding wildfire risk, both in how it impacts individual properties and the broader landscape,” Ross shared. “With advances in wildfire modeling and integrating this data into platforms like Zillow, First Street is empowering more people—from homeowners to policymakers—to make informed decisions that can ultimately reduce wildfire risk and enhance community resilience.”
