Wildland fires are becoming more destructive and costly in the United States, posing increased environmental, social, and economic threats to fire-prone regions. Quantifying current wildfire risk by considering a wide range of multi-scale, and multi-disciplinary variables such as socio-economic and biophysical indicators for resiliency and mitigation measures, deems inherently challenging. To systematically examine wildfire threats amongst humans and their physical and social environment on multiple scales, a livelihood vulnerability index (LVI) analysis can be employed. Therefore, we produce a framework needed to compute the LVI for the top 14 American States that are most exposed to wildfires, based on the 2019 Wildfire Risk report of the acreage size burnt in 2018 and 2019: Arizona, California, Florida, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. The LVI is computed for each State by first considering the State’s exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity to wildfire events (known as the three contributing factors). These contributing factors are determined by a set of indicator variables (vulnerability metrics) that are categorized into corresponding major component groups. The framework structure is then justified by performing a principal component analysis (PCA) to ensure that each selected indicator variable corresponds to the correct contributing factor. The LVI for each State is then calculated based on a set of algorithms relating to our framework. LVI values rank between 0 (low LVI) to 1 (high LVI). Our results indicate that Arizona and New Mexico experience the greatest livelihood vulnerability, with an LVI of 0.57 and 0.55, respectively. In contrast, California, Florida, and Texas experience the least livelihood vulnerability to wildfires (0.44, 0.35, 0.33 respectively). LVI is strongly weighted on its contributing factors and is exemplified by the fact that even though California has one of the highest exposures and sensitivity to wildfires, it has very high adaptive capacity measures in place to withstand its livelihood vulnerability. Thus, States with relatively high wildfire exposure can exhibit relatively lower livelihood vulnerability because of adaptive capacity measures in place. On the other hand, States can exhibit a high LVI (such as Arizona) despite having a low exposure, due to lower adaptive capacities in place. The results from this study are critical to wildfire managers, government, policymakers, and research scientists for identifying and providing better resiliency and adaptation measures to support the American States that are most vulnerable to wildfires.