Ames Lake, WA
How exposed is Ames Lake to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Ames Lake lands at the 24th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a figure built from its 744 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Ames Lake at the 24th national percentile — 0 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Ames Lake's buildings actually sit
Direct exposure dominates in Ames Lake: 80.5% of its 744 buildings, versus 19.1% Indirect and 0.4% Minimal. Clearing space around a structure changes the outcome here more than any single building-material swap.
How Ames Lake compares
There's little gap between Ames Lake's 24th national percentile and its 38th percentile inside Washington, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Ames Lake ranks 24,033 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 14,187 by building count (1 is largest). Within Washington alone, it ranks 387 of 628 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Washington on its state page.
Ames Lake and the insurance market
Ames Lake's moderate rating (24th percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
What would actually reduce this score
With 80.5% of Ames Lake in Direct exposure, defensible-space clearing and ember-resistant construction (vents, Class-A roofing) address the exposure this page's own numbers describe, not a generic checklist. See the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Ames Lake's 24th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Ames Lake, see the exposure-zones guide.