# Wildfire Insurance Rate Leading-Indicator — Data Inventory
*Generated: 2026-05-22 | Scope: US western states home insurance wildfire exposure*

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## 1. ENSO / ONI (Oceanic Niño Index)

**Source:** NOAA Climate Prediction Center — oni.ascii.txt (public, no auth required)
**URL:** https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/oni.ascii.txt
**Format:** Text, seasonal 3-month running means, ~1950-present
**Cached locally:** internal cache (Rate Authority data warehouse)
**Coverage:** 915 monthly records, 1950–2026 (interpolated from seasonal)
**Lag structure used:** 3m / 6m / 9m pre-fire-season windows (Apr-Jun, Jan-Mar, Oct-Dec prior yr)
**Notes:** Decades-known teleconnection; La Niña (ONI < -0.5) correlates with western US drought.

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## 2. NIFC Wildfire Statistics (National Interagency Fire Center)

**Source:** NIFC public annual statistics — statsreporting.nifc.gov / nifc.gov/fire-information/statistics
**Format:** HTML tables (annual national totals); state breakdown from NIFC SIT-209 reports
**Data used:** 1990-2024 national annual acres burned + fires (hard-coded from public record)
**State shares:** Estimated from NIFC 1992-2015 state-level historical averages
**Coverage:** 455 state-year records (13 states × 35 years)
**Limitations:**
- State shares are ESTIMATED, not direct API pull — state-level SIT-209 data requires
  manual download from statsreporting.nifc.gov or NIFC FTP
- 2024 national figure is preliminary estimate
**Cal Fire (CA-specific):** Cal Fire incident database available at
  https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents — requires scraping or CAL FIRE data request for
  complete historical series by county/acreage/structures destroyed

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## 3. Insured Wildfire Loss Data

**Primary public sources:**
- **Insurance Information Institute (III):** Annual loss summaries by peril; CA wildfire losses
  well-documented in III Facts+Statistics reports
  URL: https://www.iii.org/fact-statistic/facts-statistics-wildfires
- **CDI (CA Dept of Insurance):** Claims data filed under CA Prop 103 rate-filing process;
  publicly available on request but not bulk API
- **NOAA Billion-Dollar Disasters:** Aggregated US figures; not state-level
  URL: https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/billions/
- **Munich Re NatCat:** REQUIRES LICENSE — public summaries cite headline annual figures
  used in this model; per-state data behind paywall
- **Aon Impact Forecasting:** Annual "Weather, Climate & Catastrophe Insight" — public PDF,
  headline figures used; granular state data behind paywall
- **SHELDUS (ASU):** Spatial Hazard Events and Losses — public, property losses
  URL: https://sheldus.asu.edu/ — requires free registration

**Data used in model:** Key CA loss years sourced from III/CDI public summaries;
other states from Aon annual reports + III; non-event years use $50M baseline floor.
**Coverage:** 210 state-year records (5 states: CA, OR, WA, CO, NM × ~35 years)
**Limitations:** Non-event years (no major fire) use $50M floor — **this underestimates
model confidence** for small-loss years. The model is more reliable for predicting
above-normal vs below-normal years (directional) than for point-estimate magnitudes.

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## 4. PDSI (Palmer Drought Severity Index)

**Source:** NOAA NCEI Climate Divisional Database
**URL:** https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/climate-at-a-glance/divisional/mapping
**Format:** Monthly by climate division (not FRED — FRED does not carry state-level PDSI)
**Status in model: NOT DIRECTLY PULLED** — documented gap
**Reason:** Requires NOAA CDO API token (free registration) for bulk monthly state-division data;
  rate limits and format complexity excluded from this run
**Proxy used:** ONI-derived drought-probability signal (La Niña DJF/MAM flags); see Section 1
**Recommended next step:** Register for NOAA CDO token at
  https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cdo-web/token — pull PDSI for climate divisions 01-07 in CA,
  divisions in OR/WA/CO/NM; regress against actual fire losses to validate proxy quality

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## 5. Vegetation Health Index (VHI)

**Source:** NOAA/NESDIS STAR Vegetation Health Products
**URL:** https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/smcd/emb/vci/VH/vh_browse.php
**Format:** Weekly GeoTIFF by 4km grid; VCI/TCI/VHI composite
**Status in model: NOT DIRECTLY PULLED** — documented gap
**Reason:** Requires GeoTIFF download + spatial aggregation by state boundary;
  prior West Africa cocoa/coffee work uses VHI but a western-US VHI pipeline is not yet built
**Existing pattern:** internal correlation-scan utilities → FIRMS fire density
  (NASA VIIRS) + ENSO; VHI aggregation for western US would extend this pattern
**Recommended next step:** Pull VHI time series for CA climate zones via NOAA STAR API;
  compute "low VHI pixel fraction" (VHI < 25) per state-month as a fuel moisture proxy

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## 6. Live Fuel Moisture (USFS WFAS)

**Source:** USDA Forest Service Wildland Fire Assessment System
**URL:** https://www.wfas.net/index.php/fuel-moisture-moisture-drought-41
**Format:** Station-level weekly readings; no bulk API documented
**Status in model: NOT PULLED** — documented gap
**Notes:** Live fuel moisture below 90% (chaparral) strongly correlates with fire intensity;
  serves as a 0-4 week lead indicator (shorter than ENSO signal).
  For the 3-9 month insurance lead-time objective, ENSO/PDSI are better suited.

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## 7. Carrier Filing Volume (State-Year)

**Source:** NAIC state filing databases (StatBook); CDI rate filings (CA); state DOI portals
**Status in model: NOT PULLED** — documented gap
**Reason:** State DOI data requires per-state API access or SERFF database subscription;
  NAIC market data requires membership access
**Proxy:** The carrier-exit narrative (State Farm CA exit Mar 2023, Allstate CA pause,
  Farmers FL pullback) is well-documented in press but not in a queryable DB
**Recommended next step:** CDI rate filing data available at
  https://interactive.web.insurance.ca.gov/apex_extprd/f?p=111:1 — scrape non-renewal
  notices and rate change filings by zip code to build CA carrier activity index

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## Summary: What's In vs Out

| Signal | In Model | Gap Documented |
|--------|----------|----------------|
| ENSO/ONI full history (1950-2025) | YES | — |
| NIFC annual acres burned (1990-2024) | YES (estimated state shares) | State-level SIT-209 direct |
| Insured losses by state-year | YES (public summaries) | Munich Re/Aon licensed granular |
| PDSI by state | PROXY (ONI) | NOAA CDO direct pull |
| VHI western US | NO | GeoTIFF pipeline needed |
| Live fuel moisture | NO | Short lead time (< 3m) — less relevant |
| Carrier filing volume | NO | NAIC/SERFF access needed |
| Cal Fire incident DB | NO | Manual scrape / CDI request |