Golden Valley, AZ
Golden Valley wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Golden Valley at the 78th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (well above the national norm for wildfire risk), a figure built from 6,622 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Golden Valley at the 74th national percentile — 5 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Golden Valley's buildings actually sit
USFS classifies 99.6% of Golden Valley's buildings as Direct exposure, higher than its 0.1% Indirect share and far above its 0.4% Minimal share — a profile where 6,595 structures sit close enough to vegetation that lot clearing matters most. At 6,622 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Golden Valley against the rest of the country
Inside Arizona, Golden Valley sits at just the 40th percentile even though it scores 78th nationally — the state's overall wildfire exposure is high enough to make this a relatively quiet corner of it. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Golden Valley ranks 6,861 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 2,615 by building count (1 is largest). Within Arizona alone, it ranks 264 of 441 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Arizona on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Golden Valley
At the 78th percentile nationally, Golden Valley carries the 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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
With 99.6% of Golden Valley in Direct exposure, defensible-space clearing and ember-resistant construction (vents, Class-A roofing) address the exposure this page's own numbers describe, not a generic checklist. See the home-hardening guide.
Where Golden Valley's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 6,622 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Golden Valley. The exposure-zones guide covers what Golden Valley's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.