Wildfire and bushfire models

The insurance industry’s losses due to wildfires are rising. Escalated wildfire severity and expanded exposure in wildfire-prone areas, alongside an increase in reconstruction costs, have all contributed to devastating impacts on insurers’ bottom lines. Shifting regulatory landscapes and market dynamics add to wildfire risk management’s complexity.

Among other lessons, recent wildfires have highlighted the importance of enhanced wildfire risk modeling for underwriting entire portfolios, pricing and underwriting individual policies, reinsurance purchasing, and capital adequacy.

Moody’s can help you gain perspective on wildfire risk to enhance pricing accuracy, achieve a stronger position in the market, and outperform the competition. From better risk selection to risk-appropriate pricing, our wildfire modeling capabilities can help you quantify mitigation impacts for a more complete picture of wildfire risk.

Midnight view of peoples looking forest fire.

What we do

Moody’s RMS™ Wildfire Modeling accurately characterizes fires as they start and travel by accessing factors that drive ignition and spread, including wind and vegetation presence. This helps insurers, reinsurers, governments, and financial institutions differentiate safe structures from dangerous ones, conduct risk assessments, estimate potential losses, insightfully price fire risk, and optimize risk transfer.

Improve portfolio management

Monitor and manage a portfolio’s risk accumulation to perform stress testing for potential losses and protect from insolvency as well as identify growth opportunities in an ever-changing wildfire risk landscape.

Enhance risk selection and pricing

The latest fuel data, historical fire databases, and burn probability maps improve hazard modeling’s and risk differentiation’s accuracy and relevance. Our models capture the state of “physical risk to date,” which allows for insightful simulation of fire weather parameters while enhancing the model’s utility in adapting to current and future conditions.

Understand the impact of wildfire mitigation

Model utility-related ignitions and the measures to mitigate these risks, emphasizing the importance of incorporating mitigation strategies into risk assessments.

Speak to our team today

Interested in learning more about our offerings? Our solutions specialists are ready to help.

Get in touch

Testimonial

The stochastic modeling information Moody’s gave us is powerful. We’re now able to prioritize where we do mitigation work with a data-driven approach. We are able to understand bands of uncertainty in our assumptions, and, more importantly, rigorously test and challenge them.

— Robert LeMoine
Director of Enterprise Risk Management, Insurance, and Data Analytics, Southern California Edison

What is urban conflagration and what role does it play in managing wildfire risk

Urban conflagration plays a critical role in wildfire risk management, especially in densely populated areas. It models how ember hazards can trigger and sustain rapid fire spread in urban settings, traditionally seen as low-risk zones. This mechanism can lead to significant losses deep within urban environments, as seen in events like the 2017 Tubbs fire. Understanding urban conflagration is essential for assessing and mitigating wildfire risks in urbanized regions, ensuring better preparedness and response strategies.

How urban conflagration works and why it matters for Australia (Part I)

How urban conflagration works and why it matters for Australia (Part II)

How we help

01 Model coverage

Model coverage

Moody’s RMS™ Wildfire and Bushfire HD Models deliver comprehensive geographic coverage to help you better assess wildfire risk. In North America, the models cover the contiguous United States, Hawaii, and 10 Canadian provinces. In Australia, coverage extends across mainland Australia, Tasmania, and the surrounding smaller islands.

02 Advanced hazard modeling

Advanced hazard modeling

The model incorporates the latest fuel data, historical fire databases, and burn probability maps, maintaining accuracy and relevance in hazard modeling.

03 Robust stochastic event catalogue

Robust stochastic event catalogue

Our stochastic catalog include up to 100,000-year fire weather and extreme wind speed simulations and results up to 160 million heat, ember, and smoke footprints in per model. This comprehensive dataset, combined with improved ignition modeling at the community and location levels, facilitates in-depth risk analysis, particularly in understanding the tail risk profile associated with wildfires.

04 Extensive vulnerability curve

Extensive vulnerability curve

Moody’s RMS model’s refined damage curves allow for a more accurate estimation of potential losses and a finer differentiation of risk, enhancing its utility for wildfire risk underwriting by ensuring a high degree of accuracy

05 Enhanced secondary modifiers

Enhance secondary modifiers

Models incorporates credits for local wildfire risk reduction measures. The expanded list of modifiers allows users to evaluate the effectiveness of mechanical thinning techniques and other property and community hardening measures.

06 Urban conflagration modeling

Urban conflagration modeling

Moody’s specifically calibrated its urban conflagration capabilities to assess built environments’ vulnerability to wildfires. This module, with its increased number of simulations, addresses the uncertainties in urban conflagration modeling, providing a more insightful assessment of urban fire risk.

07 Specialty models

Specialty models

Expanded secondary modifiers and the introduction of specialty models provide targeted insights for various risks. These additions allow for a nuanced evaluation of mitigation measures and compliance with evolving regulatory requirements, offering tailored solutions for specific sectors or exposure types.

Download the buyer’s guide: 10 critical questions for smarter wildfire modeling

Wildfire risk is evolving rapidly, and insurers and reinsurers need high-resolution, actionable insights to stay ahead. Moody’s RMS™ US Wildfire HD Model Buyer’s Guide delivers expert guidance to help you:

Benchmark wildfire models using the 10 essential questions every modeler should ask
Understand how advanced modeling approaches improve risk selection, pricing, and capital allocation
Evaluate coverage, urban conflagration, mitigation strategies, and utility risks with confidence

Download the buyer's guide

Delivering advanced wildfire insights through HD Framework

HD models are a major step forward in the quality of catastrophe risk quantification, delivering deep insights that can inform risk management practices and business decision-making. We at Moody’s tailored our HD modeling framework for cloud-native architecture, leveraging enhanced processing capabilities for model calculations and outputs. This approach helps modelers to obtain deeper insights into their risk assessments.

Reshaping the insurance market: The 2025 Los Angeles Wildfire

Since 2011, California has endured more than 50 major wildfires, resulting in over $100 billion in total losses. The 2025 Los Angeles wildfire highlights how a series of wildfires can devastate California communities while underscoring the growing need for a more sophisticated understanding of risk. With over $22 billion in losses reported by insurers and reinsurers, the event serves as a wake-up call, prompting significant changes in how carriers approach coverage. 

Learn more

Who we help

Underwriters

By using industry-leading science, data, and technology, we enhance underwriting decision-making across multiple segments and lines of business. Our solutions help underwriters price risks with speed and confidence, modernize workflows, unify risk analytics, and overcome private-entity data gaps.

Where we help

Regional and country wildfire models

News and views

Quantifying avoided loss to hard infrastructure from hazardous fuels reduction

Quantify how forest treatment mitigation and resiliency measures can lower wildfire risk.

Learn more

announcement

Aug 04, 2025

Moody's

Moody’s Wildfire Risk Model Successfully Completes California Department of Insurance Review Process

Moody’s Corporation announced today that the Moody’s RMS U.S. Wildfire Model v2.0 has successfully completed the review process established by the California Department of Insurance (CDI).

article

Jun 25, 2025

Moody's

Establishing a new standard for Australian bushfire risk modelling

Moody’s is stepping up to help tackle head-on the challenges posed by this fast-evolving risk with our forthcoming Moody’s RMS™ Australia Bushfire HD Model.

whitepaper

May 31, 2024

Moody's

Quantifying avoided loss to hard infrastructure from hazardous fuels reduction

Quantify how forest treatment mitigation and resiliency measures can lower wildfire risk.

whitepaper

Nov 15, 2020

Moody's

Application of wildfire mitigation to insured property exposure

To quantify the benefits of certain wildfire mitigation features, this study uses the Moody’s RMS North America Wildfire Model to quantify hypothetical loss reduction benefits in nine communities across three Western states: California, Colorado, and Oregon.

blog

Aug 19, 2024

Moody's

Hawaii wildfires: reflections on the first anniversary, new insights, and innovations for the insurance sector

The scale and intensity of the devastating 2023 wildfires in Hawaii not only underscored the vulnerability of the island’s communities but also laid bare the challenges and opportunities the insurance sector faces in addressing and managing wildfire risk.

blog

May 31, 2024

Moody's

Shaping the future of wildfire insurance in California: new insights from the most comprehensive wildfire risk model in the market

Wildfire insurance coverage struggles to evolve as regulatory frameworks have hindered the use of risk analytics tools such as catastrophe wildfire models in the rate-making process.

blog

Oct 02, 2024

Moody's

Advancing wildfire risk management with the North America Wildfire HD Version 2.0 Model

Wildfire risk in North America is becoming more frequent and severe, posing severe financial risks to insurers.

blog

Apr 13, 2021

Moody's

Canada wildfire: Managing the next Fort McMurray

In 2016, the Fort McMurray wildfire became Canada's most expensive disaster, costing C$8.9 billion. Prompting the largest evacuation in Canada's history, it underscored the urgent need for better wildfire risk understanding and insurance strategies.

blog

Dec 20, 2017

Moody's

California wildfires: Exposure impacted by the Thomas Fire

The Thomas Fire, California's second-largest wildfire, raises concerns for the insurance industry due to the varying insured values of affected properties. Spanning ten ZIP codes, it has impacted communities with differing average insured values.