One factor made the recent LA County wildfires so deadly and fast moving: Wind.
Downslope, wind-driven fires are dangerous enough to merit their own study. Consider that 13.4% of wildfires in the U.S. between 1992 and 2020 happened under such weather conditions, with even greater portions of land and property damage as well as fatalities occurring during windy firestorms, according to a May 2023 article in the science journal Earth’s Future.
Researchers also determined that every 10% that wind speed increases during a fire doubles the speed at which that blaze can travel.
And fire isn’t the only insurance concern when it comes to wind. Losses related to wind and hail accounted for the largest share of homeowners’ insurance claims between 2018 and 2022, according to the Insurance Information Institute.
Travelers Insurance is even more decisive in its determination of the impact of wind on home insurance claims. Wind-related losses accounted for 24% of the carrier’s home insurance claims between 2009 and 2016, ValuePenguin reports. Wind also accounted for 17% of Travelers’ most expensive home insurance claims during that time.
So wind should be top of mind as home and property buyers increasingly consider the weather during their real estate hunt. The amount of wind a location statistically experiences can impact its climate overall, according to Redfin. The real estate aggregator recently surveyed the highest average wind speeds in cities nationwide. The slideshow above illustrates the 10 windiest cities in the U.S. as determined by Redfin.
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