8 Wildfire-Prone Cities Retirees Will Want to Steer Clear Of

Evacuating quickly is harder with mobility limits, and wildfire smoke does more damage to lungs that are already compromised. So if you're deciding where to spend your retirement, wildfire risk deserves a place on the list right next to property taxes and the cost of groceries. Apart from safety risks, you'll also want to avoid money mistakes by moving somewhere that could damage your property. 

Roughly 45 million homes in the U.S. sit in what's called the wildland-urban interface, the zone where development meets open natural vegetation. Here are eight places where that risk is genuinely high.

1. Colorado Springs, Colorado

Colorado Springs ranks 10th in the country for wildfire exposure, according to property analytics firm Cotality. Nearly 40,000 homes there carry an elevated risk of wildfire damage because of how close they sit to wildland terrain, and the reconstruction cost for all of those higher-risk homes comes to more than $17.3 billion.

This isn't theoretical. The Waldo Canyon Fire in 2012 destroyed 346 homes on the western edge of the city, and the Black Forest Fire the following year destroyed 511 homes just to the north. Statewide, First Street estimates 53% of Colorado properties face major wildfire risk over the next 30 years.

2. Riverside and San Bernardino, California

The Riverside, San Bernardino, and Ontario metro area ranks second nationally, with 166,372 homes at high or extreme wildfire risk, worth a combined $86.65 billion to rebuild.

The exposure has grown enormously in just five years. Back in 2019, that same metro had 108,787 homes at risk, worth about $40.9 billion.

3. Sacramento Area, California

The Sacramento, Roseville, and Folsom metro ranks fourth in the country, with 91,475 homes at high or extreme risk and a combined reconstruction value of $53.17 billion.

Roseville and Folsom in particular have been popular with retirees looking for California weather without California coastal prices, but that growth pushed development straight into the foothills.

4. Flagstaff, Arizona

Flagstaff sits among the nation's top 15 metro areas for the number of homes carrying moderate to high wildfire risk. It's a genuinely appealing place to retire, cooler than Phoenix and surrounded by ponderosa pine, but that pine forest is exactly the problem. It's continuous fuel right up against the neighborhoods.

5. Prescott, Arizona

Prescott has been drawing retirees for decades, and it sits beside some of the highest wildfire risk terrain in the country. Arizona overall ranks as the fifth most wildfire-prone state in the nation, behind only California, Colorado, Oregon, and Texas, and First Street estimates 27% of Arizona properties face severe wildfire risk over the next 30 years.

There's a financial wrinkle here too. Some insurance carriers have started restricting coverage in high-risk Arizona zip codes, the same pattern that played out in California.

6. Ruidoso, New Mexico

Ruidoso is a mountain village that has long attracted retirees looking for cool summers and pine forest. In June 2024, the South Fork and Salt fires burned into town, destroying or damaging roughly 1,400 structures, about 500 of them homes. Around 8,000 residents were placed under evacuation orders, and two people died.

This wasn't a freak event. Forest Service data shows the Ruidoso area has been hit by around 20 fires in the last century, including the Little Bear Fire in 2012.

7. Bend, Oregon

Bend has a higher wildfire risk than 80% of communities in the United States, according to the Forest Service's Wildfire Risk to Communities data.

There's a real irony in why Bend grew so fast. The high desert scenery and the recreation right outside town, the very things that drew everyone there, are the wildland urban interface. The amenity and the hazard are the same thing.

8. Paradise and Chico, California

In 2018, the Camp Fire destroyed the town of Paradise, California almost entirely. It remains the deadliest wildfire in the state's history, and three quarters of the residents who died were 65 or older.

Paradise was a retirement community: affordable, quiet, and tucked into the foothills. Every quality that made it attractive to retirees also made evacuation deadly when the fire arrived faster than anyone could move.

How to weigh the risk

None of these places is off-limits. Millions of people live in all eight of them, and most will never lose a home. Around 80 million properties nationwide carry significant fire exposure, so avoiding risk entirely isn't realistic. What matters is going in with your eyes open. Here are four things to check before you buy anywhere in wildfire country:

• Get an insurance quote before you make an offer, since a home you can't insure is a home you can't really afford.
• Ask specifically whether the policy covers full replacement cost.
• Find out what the evacuation route looks like and how long it takes.
• Think honestly about smoke, since it can sit over a town for weeks and is rough on anyone with asthma or COPD.

One more thing worth knowing: embers cause an estimated 90% of homes that ignite in a wildfire, and they can travel half a mile or more ahead of the actual flames. Being a few blocks from the tree line is not the same as being safe. Defensible space around your own house does more for you than distance does.

Bottom line

Retirement location decisions usually come down to taxes, health care, and cost of living, and wildfire risk rarely makes the list. For anyone over 65, it probably should, since the consequences fall hardest on exactly that group.

If one of these eight cities is already on your short list, don't cross it off automatically. Price the insurance, walk the evacuation route, and know what you're taking on before you sign anything to prepare yourself financially. 

Editor's Note: Portions of this story were drafted with assistance from generative AI tools. All final creative decisions, edits, and fact checking were done by human writers and editors.

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