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FORT COLLINS, Colo. (KDVR) – A new tool from the Colorado State Forest Service shows how at-risk every Colorado community is for wildfires.

The Forest Atlas has several overlays that show users data on state forests that reflect wildfire risk, burn probability and how intense fires can be.

According to the CSFS Associate Director of Science and Data, Amanda West Fordham, this publically available tool gauges where a region falls on the fire intensity scale by taking into account weather, fuels, and topography that are likely to inhibit wildfire behavior.

Wildland-Urban Interface Risk

Another important overlay that can be toggled on while using the mapping tool is the Wildland-Urban Interface Risk layer. It estimates the potential impact a wildfire could have on community residents and their property.

With the recent wildfire seasons being what they were in Central Colorado, one can understand the impact a tool like this could have on limiting the impact of future natural disasters.

An overall county summary is also available under the Wildland-Urban Interface Risk overlay. It offers users a digestible summarized breakdown of a community’s general exposure to future wildfire disasters, based on data from 2017.

“We’re working on an update currently that will be relevant to 2022,” Fordham explained. “So we’ll have some new products coming out in the next year that will update this data as well.”

The Colorado State Forest Service out of the CSU Warner School of Natural Resources provides staffing for the Division of Forest Services out of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources and created the tool.

CSFS has tips on some easy steps homeowners can take to lower wildfire risk.

You can learn more about how to use the atlas on FOX31 NOW in the player above.