Lake Arrowhead, ME
Lake Arrowhead wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Lake Arrowhead lands at the 18th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a figure built from its 1,399 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Lake Arrowhead's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 18th percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
99.6% of Lake Arrowhead's 1,399 buildings sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone, roughly 1,393 structures close enough to burnable vegetation for flame contact, not just embers — 0% fall in the Indirect, ember-only zone and 0.4% are Minimal.
Lake Arrowhead against the rest of the country
Within Maine, Lake Arrowhead ranks higher (84th percentile) than it does nationally (18th) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Lake Arrowhead ranks 25,774 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 9,631 by building count (1 is largest). Within Maine alone, it ranks 26 of 155 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Maine on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Lake Arrowhead's low wildfire rating (18th percentile) isn't the kind of score driving the carrier pullback making news in the highest-risk Western markets — but a standard homeowners quote is still worth comparing on its own terms.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Lake Arrowhead's 99.6% 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
Every one of the two percentiles behind Lake Arrowhead's 25,774-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Lake Arrowhead, see the exposure-zones guide.