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Are you ready for fire season? This year’s has begun, with the Coastal fire destroying at least 20 homes this month in Laguna Niguel. Here’s a look at preparations you can take, the areas of greatest threat in Southern California and how often wildfires occur.

During the Coastal fire, about 800 households were given roughly one hour to evacuate. Take precautions now.

To better understand the needs of first responders and other emergency workers, the 2017 American Housing Survey asked residents how prepared they are for disasters.

RiskFactor.com is a free online tool created by the nonprofit First Street Foundation that enables Americans to learn their property’s risk from environmental threats such as flooding and wildfires and understand how risks are shifting because of a changing environment. You can input your address or city to see the risk forecast for your property over the next 30 years.

Fire threatens a home in three ways:

These bits of burning material can move up to a mile ahead of a wildfire in windy conditions. To resist them, a residence should have a sound roof and no flammable material within 5 feet of its exterior. In the Coastal fire, embers carried by 30 mph winds ignited homes that were destroyed.

A nearby fire can heat the surface of building materials to a point where combustion occurs.

Transfer of heat by direct flame exposure.

These are the state Public Utilities Commission’s Southern California fire threat maps for 2021, accounting for key wildfire factors of terrain and fuel.

You can visit the state fire marshal’s website at osfm.fire.ca.gov to see the whole state and each county.

Sources: California Public Utilities Commission, Satellite images from Google Earth, Cleveland National Forest, InciWeb, ArcGIS, U.S. Forest Service, Cal Fire, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Census Bureau

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