Gateway, AK
How exposed is Gateway to wildfire?
USFS scores Gateway at the 46th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (modestly above the national average for wildfire risk), a figure built from 2,643 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Gateway at the 49th national percentile — 2 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Gateway's buildings actually sit
Of Gateway's 2,643 counted buildings, 86.2% carry Direct exposure and only 1.3% carry Minimal — a lopsided split that puts defensible-space clearing ahead of vents or roofing as the intervention worth doing first.
Gateway against the rest of the country
Gateway's risk sits at a similar level relative to Alaska (36th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (46th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Gateway ranks 16,912 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 6,029 by building count (1 is largest). Within Alaska alone, it ranks 207 of 322 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Alaska on its state page.
Gateway and the insurance market
At the 46th national percentile, Gateway rates elevated 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
Gateway's 86.2% Direct-exposure share means lot clearing around the structure typically outweighs any single material upgrade here. The home-hardening guide ranks the options for a place shaped like this.
More on how this number was built
Gateway's 46th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Gateway, see the exposure-zones guide.