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November 15, 2008

Wildfires and Foreclosures, Part II

I’ve written about this before, but it’s worth noticing that with wildfires raging across southern California today foreclosure-heavy areas are being hit harder than most. Case in point, Yorba Linda, California, where a fire has burned dozens of homes already, and is being pushed by Santa Ana winds further southwest into Los Angeles County.

One of the main areas that is wildfire-struck is just west of the intersection of the Chino and Riverside freeways. The area is relatively recent construction, and it is, unsurprisingly, riddled with foreclosures and bank-owned properties. Check the following map, and note that the fires struck this area from the northeast and swept southwest.

[via RealtyTrac]

In general, we can expect wildfires to hit subprime- and foreclosure-struck areas more heavily than others in California. These area were built in what is euphemistically called the “wildland interface”, which is a multisyllabic way of saying near fire-prone forests and chaparral.

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