Ko Olina, HI
How exposed is Ko Olina to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Ko Olina lands at the 99th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a figure built from its 570 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Ko Olina at the 99th percentile, close to its 99th-percentile risk score.
Where Ko Olina's buildings actually sit
73% of Ko Olina's 570 buildings fall in USFS's Indirect exposure zone — ember cast rather than direct flame — against 24.4% Direct and 2.6% Minimal. Vent screens and roofing material matter more here than lot clearing alone.
Ko Olina against the rest of the country
Ko Olina's risk sits at a similar level relative to Hawaii (97th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (99th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Ko Olina ranks 258 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 16,246 by building count (1 is largest). Within Hawaii alone, it ranks 6 of 163 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Hawaii on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Ko Olina'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
Because 73% of Ko Olina's buildings sit in the Indirect zone, sealing the ember pathway (vents, roofing, gutters) is the intervention this page's data actually supports — see the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Ko Olina'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 indirect exposure implies beyond Ko Olina, see the exposure-zones guide.