Which of the nation's historic places stand where wildfire is most likely? This map shows 56,106 places on the National Register of Historic Places, from single houses and bridges to whole historic districts, each coloured by the wildfire burn hazard around it.
LowModerateHigh
Each dot is one listed place, coloured by the burn hazard around it. High is the top tenth of all places on the map.
Search for a place by its name or town
Hover over or tap a dot for its details and its National Register record
Colour the dots by burn hazard, level of significance or property type
Not for use in an emergency. This is scientific research from the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS), University of California, Santa Barbara, shared for information only. It does not show current fires, fire perimeters, closures or evacuation orders, and a low burn hazard here does not mean a place is safe from fire. Do not use it during an active wildfire. For information about your area, contact your local emergency management agency and follow instructions from local officials. In a life-threatening emergency, call 911.
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About this map
Each dot is one place listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the U.S. list of buildings, districts, structures, sites and objects judged worth preserving. The map shows 56,106 of them in all 50 states (the District of Columbia is not included): the listed places where the land at the place itself has some chance of burning. Places where that chance is zero are left out. Each dot sits at the centre of the place's mapped outline. The map comes from the paper by Mona M. Farnisa, Benjamin S. Halpern and Caitlin R. Fong, Wildfire risk to United States cultural resources, Scientific Reports 16, 21599 (2026), which is open access.
Not for emergency use
This map is part of a scientific research project at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS), University of California, Santa Barbara, and is shared for information only. It does not show current fires, fire perimeters, closures or evacuation orders, and a low burn hazard does not mean a place is safe from fire. In an emergency, follow instructions from local officials and contact your local emergency management agency; in a life-threatening emergency, call 911.
Burn hazard
Burn hazard combines two values of annual burn probability within 500 m of each place: the average and the highest. Each is rescaled from 0 to 1 across all places (the top 1% are capped at 1), and the two are averaged into one score. Places are then grouped by where they fall among all 56,106:
Low: the lower half (score ≤ 0.009)
Moderate: between the middle and the top tenth (0.009 < score ≤ 0.130)
High: the top tenth (score > 0.130)
Burn probability comes from the USDA Forest Service Wildfire Risk to Communities data (270 m cells). It is a long-run likelihood, not a forecast for this year.
Level of significance
Each National Register nomination records whether a place matters to its local community, its state, the nation or, rarely, the world. Where a nomination gives several levels, the map shows national first, then state, then local. 113 places have no level recorded. 1,449 places are also National Historic Landmarks; their cards say so.
Property type
Building: built mainly to shelter people or activities, such as a house, church or barn
District: a group of related buildings, sites or structures, such as a historic town centre
Structure: built for purposes other than shelter, such as a bridge, dam or lighthouse
Site: a place of a significant event or activity, such as a battlefield or archaeological site
Object: mainly artistic or small in scale, such as a monument, sculpture or boat
27 places have no type recorded. The colours on this map match the figures in the paper.
Research map · NCEAS, UC Santa Barbara