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New California Wildfire Prediction Market Opens with Simulated Trading Only, Real-Money Betting Pending
A new platform called Wyldfyre opened simulated trading on California fires using NASA and federal perimeter data. Earlier, Polymarket hosted nearly 20 wildfire questions in January 2025 that drew $1.2 million in bets. Federal and state agencies said they do not use such data for forecasting.
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A new prediction market focused on California wildfires opened ahead of the 2026 fire season. Wyldfyre allows simulated trading now, with real-money betting listed as coming soon, and prices county and city risk using NASA hotspot data and National Interagency Fire Center fire perimeters.
In January 2025 the Eaton Fire and Palisades Fire together destroyed more than 16,000 structures and killed 31 people.
Polymarket listed almost 20 related questions that month, including how many acres the Palisades Fire would burn by the following Friday, whether it would reach Santa Monica by Sunday, when it would reach 50 percent containment, and whether both fires would be contained before February.
People spent $1.2 million on those contracts. Sylvie Andrews and her partner lost a newly built house in Altadena to the Eaton Fire.
Susan Sherman lost her childhood home in Pacific Palisades, owned by her parents since 1963, and later sold the empty lot. Both described the betting as morally troubling. The U.S. Forest Service stated it does not use prediction-market information for wildfire forecasting and does not rely on any system that treats wildfire as an event for speculation.
Cal Fire said it relies on a deterministic, physics-based fire-behavior model and does not use prediction-market-derived data in forecasting or operational decisions. Representatives from Utah and California introduced federal legislation in March that would prohibit betting related to terrorism, assassination, war, gaming, or illegal activity.
