Cle Elum, WA
Cle Elum wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Cle Elum at the 100th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally), a figure built from 1,538 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Cle Elum at the 100th national percentile — 0 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Cle Elum's buildings actually sit
Most of Cle Elum's buildings (76.6%) 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.
Cle Elum against the rest of the country
Cle Elum scores 100th nationally and 99th 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, Cle Elum ranks 140 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 8,995 by building count (1 is largest). Within Washington alone, it ranks 6 of 628 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Washington on its state page.
Cle Elum and the insurance market
At the 100th percentile nationally, Cle Elum carries the very high rating that has pushed some carriers to limit new business in similarly-scored places elsewhere in the country. Worth comparing quotes rather than assuming last year's renewal terms still apply.
Hardening a home in Cle Elum
Because 76.6% of Cle Elum's buildings sit in the Indirect zone, sealing the ember pathway (vents, roofing, gutters) is the intervention this page's data actually supports — see the home-hardening guide.
Where Cle Elum's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 1,538 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Cle Elum. The exposure-zones guide covers what Cle Elum's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.