Satelife is not a government service. Satelife, Lda. is an independent private company. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting on behalf of CAL FIRE, the Office of the State Fire Marshal, the USDA Forest Service, FEMA, the USGS, the National Interagency Fire Center, IBHS, or any other government agency or public body. Satelife reports are informational. They are not an official hazard determination, an insurance decision, or a government record.
1. What this page is for
A Satelife report reads public data — much of it published by government agencies — and combines it into a score. Because that data is governmental, we say plainly who publishes each piece and link to the original, so you can check any figure at its source rather than taking ours on trust.
The same list appears inside the Satelife mobile app, under Data and disclosures. It is the same list because it is the same pipeline.
2. Where the data comes from
Satelife computes the scores from the sources below. The interpretation is ours; the underlying data is theirs, and linking to it is not a claim that any of these bodies endorse Satelife or have reviewed our work.
- Fire Hazard Severity Zones CAL FIRE / Office of the State Fire Marshal
- The regulator’s own classification of a parcel. In California it anchors the hazard layer; elsewhere the USFS model below takes its place.
- Wildfire Risk to Communities USDA Forest Service
- Annual burn probability and conditional flame length, read as two separate figures so a rare-but-severe parcel is not confused with a frequent-but-mild one.
- Vegetation and fuels (LANDFIRE) USGS and USDA Forest Service
- Existing vegetation type around the parcel: how much fuel there is, how continuous it is, and how it behaves when dry.
- Fire perimeters and incidents National Interagency Fire Center
- Recorded perimeters of past fires, weighted by how recent and how close each one was.
- National Risk Index FEMA
- County-level wildfire history and expected annual loss, used for context around the parcel.
- Terrain (3D Elevation Program) USGS
- Slope, aspect and exposure, computed deterministically from public elevation models.
- Aerial imagery (The National Map) USGS
- The imagery a computer-vision model reads for roof, vents, eaves, decking and defensible space.
- Fire weather observations National Weather Service data via Iowa Environmental Mesonet
- Station observations behind the seasonal wind, drought tendency and fire-weather figures. The Mesonet is run by Iowa State University, not a government agency.
- Wildfire Prepared Home standard IBHS — a nonprofit, not a government agency
- The Essential and Enhanced requirements a readiness check is scored against. Satelife does not grant the IBHS designation; only IBHS does.
- Road network OpenStreetMap contributors
- The roads behind drive-time and single-egress figures. Community-maintained, not official.
3. What Satelife adds
Everything above is an input. What Satelife contributes is the weighting between layers, the computer-vision reading of imagery, the fire-spread simulation offered on higher-risk parcels, and the score itself. Those are our own models, and any error in them is ours, not the publishers'.
A report shows every layer and the weight it carried, so a figure you disagree with can be traced back to the layer that produced it. The methodology page explains how the layers combine.
4. What a Satelife score is not
- Not an official hazard classification. Where we report a Fire Hazard Severity Zone, we are reporting what CAL FIRE published for that parcel. Our own score is a separate number and carries no regulatory status.
- Not an IBHS designation. A Wildfire Prepared readiness check is self-reported and photo-backed. It shows where a property stands against the IBHS standard before pursuing the official designation, which only IBHS can grant.
- Not an insurance decision. No insurer is obliged to price a policy off a Satelife report, and we do not underwrite, place, or sell insurance.
- Not current conditions. A report reflects data available when it was generated. Fire weather changes daily; vegetation changes seasonally.
5. Corrections
If a figure in your report looks wrong, tell us which layer and which property and we will trace it — to our model or to the source, whichever it turns out to be: loading.... If the error is in the published source data, we will say so and point you at the agency that maintains it, because only they can correct it.
6. Related
Privacy Policy — what we collect and why, on the
web and in the mobile app.
Terms & Conditions — the limits on what a report
is and what it may be relied on for.
