Howell, UT
How exposed is Howell to wildfire?
USFS scores Howell at the 99th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally), a figure built from 339 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Howell's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 99th percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
USFS classifies 73.5% of Howell's buildings as Direct exposure, higher than its 26.6% Indirect share and far above its 0% Minimal share — a profile where 249 structures sit close enough to vegetation that lot clearing matters most.
Where Howell ranks
There's little gap between Howell's 99th national percentile and its 96th percentile inside Utah, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Howell ranks 457 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 20,611 by building count (1 is largest). Within Utah alone, it ranks 14 of 326 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Utah on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Howell
Howell's 99th-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
Howell's 73.5% 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
Howell's 99th-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 Howell, see the exposure-zones guide.