Hood River, OR
Hood River wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Hood River at the 92nd national percentile for risk to structures, in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a score built from 3,481 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 Hood River at the 93rd percentile, close to its 92nd-percentile risk score.
Hood River's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS puts 87.4% of Hood River's 3,481 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 11.9% Direct and 0.8% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
Hood River against the rest of the country
Inside Oregon, Hood River sits at just the 77th percentile even though it scores 92nd 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, Hood River ranks 2,656 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 4,793 by building count (1 is largest). Within Oregon alone, it ranks 99 of 420 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Oregon on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Because Hood River is in Oregon, a wildfire-hazard disclosure is legally required before a sale closes here — unusual nationally, since only these two states mandate it. Full detail in the disclosure-law guide.
Hardening a home in Hood River
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Hood River (87.4% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
Where Hood River's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 3,481 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Hood River. The exposure-zones guide covers what Hood River's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.