Kenai, AK
Kenai wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Kenai at the 85th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally), a figure built from 2,618 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Kenai at the 84th percentile, close to its 85th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
67.4% of Kenai's 2,618 buildings sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone, roughly 1,765 structures close enough to burnable vegetation for flame contact, not just embers — 30.8% fall in the Indirect, ember-only zone and 1.8% are Minimal.
Kenai against the rest of the country
Inside Alaska, Kenai sits at just the 69th percentile even though it scores 85th 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, Kenai ranks 4,746 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 6,068 by building count (1 is largest). Within Alaska alone, it ranks 103 of 322 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Alaska on its state page.
Kenai and the insurance market
Kenai's 85th-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.
Hardening a home in Kenai
With 67.4% of Kenai 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 Kenai's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Kenai's 4,746-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Kenai's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.