Ester, AK
How exposed is Ester to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Ester at the 98th national percentile for risk to structures, in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a score built from 1,114 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Ester at the 98th percentile, close to its 98th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Of Ester's 1,114 counted buildings, 99.4% carry Direct exposure and only 0% carry Minimal — a lopsided split that puts defensible-space clearing ahead of vents or roofing as the intervention worth doing first.
Where Ester ranks
Ester's risk sits at a similar level relative to Alaska (94th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (98th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Ester ranks 616 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 11,188 by building count (1 is largest). Within Alaska alone, it ranks 18 of 322 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Alaska on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Ester's 98th-percentile, very high rating is the kind of score behind a broader national pattern: insurers pulling back from the highest wildfire-risk markets, non-renewing or declining new policies outright, most visibly in California. Shopping around, not assuming automatic renewal, tends to matter here.
What would actually reduce this score
Because Direct exposure dominates in Ester (99.4%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
Where Ester's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Ester's 616-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Ester's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.