Nevada's County Where any Wildfire Could be Disastrous

Wildfire Hazard Potential

This map highlights those counties where a wildfire would be more difficult to control and suppress. The percentage of houses that would be directly exposed to fire is also mentioned.

Very Low [Less than 200]
Low [200 - 700]
Moderate [700 - 1,800]
High [1,800 - 4,700]
Very High [More than 4,700]

You can access here the full wildfire risk dataset. This map was crated using the Jenks natural breaks classification method, a data clustering method designed to determine the best arrangement of values into different classes.



By Patricia Martínez Sastre

June 26th, 2022

Elko County has more rural communities located in high and extreme wildfire hazard areas than anywhere else in Nevada, and the worst hazard potential in the country.

Here many residents and their homes are not prepared to survive wildfire, according to a recent study by the University of Nevada from 2016.

More than half of Elko's over 20,600 houses would face a direct exposure to fire in case of an arson, concluded the US Department of Agriculture on its wildfire risk dataset.

Other risky factors are Elko's vegetation -asagebrush and rabbitbrush- as well as constant summer thunderstorms and dry lightning strikes in the area. Fire records show that 64% of prior arsons whose cause was known were due to lightning.