Defensible-space treatment of <114,000 ha 40 m from high-risk buildings near wildland vegetation could reduce loss in WUI wildfire disasters across Colorado's 27 million ha

Context    
WUI wildfire disasters are increasing, as fires are pushed by strong winds and drier fuels across landscapes and into communities. Possible disasters make maintaining and restoring landscape-scale fire in fire-adapted ecosystems difficult. Rapid action is needed to reduce building loss in WUI wildfire disasters. 
Objectives      
In a Colorado case study, I used distance-based empirical modeling to refine potential risk of building loss in WUI wildfire disasters to focus risk-reduction efforts.
Methods   
New empirical modeling showed 95% of USA building loss in WUI wildfire disasters was within 100 m of wildland vegetation. I used modeling to estimate and map potential relative risk of a WUI wildfire disaster for each of 2,185,953 buildings in Colorado.
Results     
High-risk buildings were 241,375 or 11% of total buildings. However, the 20-40 m essential defensible space around these buildings covered only 46,767- 114,084 ha. Area within 100 m of wildland vegetation, conta...