Estero, FL
Estero, FL's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Estero's 16,174 buildings earn a 93rd-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Estero at the 91st percentile, close to its 93rd-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Most of Estero's buildings (61.8%) 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 16,174 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Estero against the rest of the country
Estero's risk sits at a similar level relative to Florida (87th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (93rd) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Estero ranks 2,289 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 900 by building count (1 is largest). Within Florida alone, it ranks 126 of 955 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Florida on its state page.
Estero and the insurance market
Estero's very high rating (93rd percentile) puts it among the places where the national carrier-pullback trend is most relevant — not a guarantee of a coverage problem, but a reason to shop rather than assume.
Hardening a home in Estero
Because 61.8% of Estero'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
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 16,174 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Estero. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Estero, see the exposure-zones guide.