Elk Plain, WA
Elk Plain wildfire risk explained
Elk Plain's 6,644 buildings earn a 19th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Elk Plain at the 21st national percentile — 2 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Elk Plain's buildings actually sit
54.3% of Elk Plain's 6,644 buildings fall in USFS's Indirect exposure zone — ember cast rather than direct flame — against 19.8% Direct and 25.9% Minimal. Vent screens and roofing material matter more here than lot clearing alone. At 6,644 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Elk Plain compares
Elk Plain scores 19th nationally and 27th 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, Elk Plain ranks 25,640 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 2,604 by building count (1 is largest). Within Washington alone, it ranks 459 of 628 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Washington on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Elk Plain's low rating (19th percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
Hardening a home in Elk Plain
Because 54.3% of Elk Plain'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.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Elk Plain's 25,640-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Elk Plain, see the exposure-zones guide.