Arlington, WA
How exposed is Arlington to wildfire?
Arlington's 7,317 buildings earn a 16th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Arlington's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 18th percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Most of Arlington's buildings (76.5%) sit in the Indirect zone, where wind-blown embers rather than flame front are the mechanism USFS is scoring — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing are the interventions this pattern favors, more than defensible space alone. At 7,317 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Arlington against the rest of the country
Arlington scores 16th nationally and 22nd within Washington — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Arlington ranks 26,521 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 2,337 by building count (1 is largest). Within Washington alone, it ranks 493 of 628 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Washington on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Arlington
At the 16th national percentile, Arlington rates low for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
What would actually reduce this score
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Arlington (76.5% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Arlington's 26,521-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Arlington, see the exposure-zones guide.