Kalama, WA
Kalama wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Kalama at the 41st national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (modestly above the national average for wildfire risk), a figure built from 1,496 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Kalama at the 40th national percentile — 1 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Kalama's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS puts 83.1% of Kalama's 1,496 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 16.8% Direct and 0.1% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
How Kalama compares
Kalama's 58th-percentile standing inside Washington outpaces its 41st national percentile — this is a hotter spot than most of its own state, even though the state as a whole runs cooler nationally. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Kalama ranks 18,640 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 9,190 by building count (1 is largest). Within Washington alone, it ranks 267 of 628 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Washington on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Kalama's elevated rating (41st percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
What would actually reduce this score
Kalama's 83.1% 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.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 1,496 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Kalama. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Kalama, see the exposure-zones guide.