How to Determine Your Home's Fire Score
There's no public tool for this. Insurers score it themselves from your location, construction, and local wildfire data.
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What an insurer treats as your fire score comes from things you can actually look up before they do. Distance to dense vegetation, the slope of the land around the house, roof and siding material, and whether a fire department sits within a few miles all factor in. Some states also use wildfire risk models tied to your county or zip code. Your renewal letter or declarations page won't show a number, but if coverage is dropped or the price jumps, these are the details behind it worth checking against your own property.
Wildfire risk doesn't price the same everywhere
One insurer's view of your fire risk isn't the only one. If your rate went up or coverage was dropped over wildfire exposure, comparing quotes shows what other insurers are willing to offer for the same house.
What to do if your fire score is working against you
A few things lower the risk a house presents, and some of them cost little to nothing. Clearing dry brush and dead vegetation within thirty feet of the house, moving firewood piles and propane tanks away from the structure, and keeping gutters clear of leaves and needles all reduce how a fire could reach the house. A metal or Class A fire-rated roof counts for more than siding material in most wildfire models, so if a roof replacement is coming up anyway, that's worth asking a contractor about. None of this guarantees a lower price, but insurers that write in wildfire-prone areas often do give credit for defensible space and fire-resistant construction, and some state programs offer similar credits if a home is certified through a local wildfire mitigation inspection.
If the house was already damaged by fire or smoke, the fire score question matters less right now than what the policy actually pays. Dwelling coverage pays to rebuild or repair the structure, and a fire or wildfire is one of the standard causes of loss almost every homeowners policy covers. Smoke damage to the house and to belongings is typically covered too, even in rooms the flames never reached. Personal property coverage pays to replace damaged or destroyed belongings, usually at either their depreciated value or the cost to replace them new, depending on what the policy lists. The declarations page shows which type applies.
Being displaced from the house brings in a separate part of the policy, usually called loss of use or additional living expenses. It pays the difference between what normally gets spent on living costs and what gets spent while displaced, things like a hotel or short-term rental, extra meals out, and similar costs tied directly to not being able to live in the house. It has its own limit, often a percentage of the dwelling coverage amount, and it runs for a set period or until the home is repaired, whichever the policy states. Save receipts from the start. An insurer will ask for documentation before reimbursing these costs.
For anyone starting a claim after a fire, the adjuster assigned to the file is the first point of contact for questions about what's covered and what the next steps are. A written inventory of damaged or destroyed belongings, with photos where possible, speeds up the contents portion of the claim. For anyone still in the planning stage, worried about wildfire risk rather than recovering from a loss, the mitigation steps above are the ones within reach, and asking directly whether a policy includes wildfire as a covered peril, rather than assuming it does, is worth doing before a renewal rather than after a loss.
If the house has already burned, here's what happens next
Filing the claim starts the clock, and most insurers want notice quickly, often within a day or two of the loss if possible. An adjuster gets assigned to the file and will want to inspect the property, so avoid major cleanup or disposal of damaged items until that's happened, or at least until everything is photographed. Keep anything structural or valuable that was destroyed if it's safe to do so. What looks like trash to a homeowner can be evidence of what the house contained and what it was worth.
Temporary repairs are usually the homeowner's responsibility to arrange right away, boarding up windows, tarping a roof, anything that stops further damage from weather or looting. Save the receipts. Reasonable costs for this kind of emergency work are typically reimbursed under the dwelling coverage, separate from the larger rebuilding claim, but a policy sets a limit on this too, so it helps to ask the adjuster before spending heavily on contractors.
Rebuilding itself moves in stages. An insurer estimates the cost to repair or replace the structure, and payment usually comes in installments tied to the progress of the work, not as one lump sum up front. If the estimate seems low against what local contractors are quoting, that's worth raising with the adjuster directly, and in some states a public adjuster can be hired independently to represent the homeowner's side of the valuation, though that comes at its own cost, usually a percentage of the settlement.
For a full loss, where the house isn't repairable, the dwelling limit on the declarations page is the ceiling of what gets paid for the structure, though some policies include extended replacement cost that pays somewhat above that limit if rebuilding costs run high. Codes may have changed since the house was built, and a policy with ordinance or law coverage pays for the added cost of meeting current building code during reconstruction. Without it, that gap is the homeowner's to cover. Checking for this coverage on the declarations page, before a loss happens, is one of the more overlooked parts of a wildfire-area policy.
Before the next renewal
Pull up your declarations page and check the dwelling limit against what rebuilding would actually cost today. Confirm wildfire and ordinance or law coverage are both listed, then compare what other insurers offer for the same house.
