Claims News Service, Dec. 4, 2:29 p.m. EST — CDS Business Mapping, a provider of online hazard mapping, has added a Florida Wildfire report to its RiskMeter Online natural hazard risk report service. The company said that by simply typing in an address, RiskMeter's wildfire report will return a property's proximity to fire risks as very low, low, medium, or high.
"Although the California wildfires have garnered much attention from the media, the state of Florida is facing a wildfire predicament as well," said Dan Munson, founder of RiskMeter Online, in a release. "The combination of a warm climate, new housing developments being built in wildland areas, and overburdened firefighters have increased insurers' vulnerability to wildfire losses."
Munson's statements bear out statistics. According to the Insurance Information Institute (I.I.I.), Florida ranked fifth in the nation for wildfires in 2006 after the state experienced more than 4,200 fires that resulted in the loss of 200,000 acres of land. The Florida Division of Forestry is reporting that 2007 is facing similar losses. So far, there have been more than 4,000 wildfires and 300,000 acres burned.
Nationwide, wildfires are getting worse, too. I.I.I. reports that the wildfire problem is growing as more people move into risky areas, with 2006 setting a record both in the number of forest fires and their size. The National Interagency Fire Center reports that a total of 96,385 fires were documented and 9.9 million acres of forest and woodland burned, a 125-percent increase over the 10-year average. Fifty percent of the total occurred in the southern section of the U.S. Over the past decade, I.I.I. said that the number of acres burned has increased as drought, record-setting heat, and the build-up of dead trees and undergrowth have combined to heighten the risk of fire.
More information is available at www.riskmeter.com.
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