Kailua (Honolulu), HI
How exposed is Kailua (Honolulu) to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Kailua (Honolulu) lands at the 90th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a figure built from its 12,804 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Kailua (Honolulu) at the 87th national percentile — 2 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Kailua (Honolulu)'s building exposure, zone by zone
USFS puts 88% of Kailua (Honolulu)'s 12,804 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 3.3% Direct and 8.7% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to. At 12,804 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Kailua (Honolulu) against the rest of the country
Inside Hawaii, Kailua (Honolulu) sits at just the 42nd percentile even though it scores 90th 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, Kailua (Honolulu) ranks 3,308 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,192 by building count (1 is largest). Within Hawaii alone, it ranks 95 of 163 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Hawaii on its state page.
Kailua (Honolulu) and the insurance market
At the 90th percentile nationally, Kailua (Honolulu) carries the very 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.
Hardening a home in Kailua (Honolulu)
Kailua (Honolulu)'s 88% Indirect-exposure share points at embers, not flame contact, as the main pathway — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing rank ahead of defensible space here. Detail in the home-hardening guide.
Where Kailua (Honolulu)'s figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 12,804 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Kailua (Honolulu). The exposure-zones guide covers what Kailua (Honolulu)'s dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.