Lawai, HI
How exposed is Lawai to wildfire?
Lawai's 1,028 buildings earn a 96th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Lawai's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 94th percentile nationally.
Lawai's building exposure, zone by zone
1,028 buildings are counted in Lawai, and 52.8% of them are Indirect exposure — ember-driven risk rather than the 47.2% in Direct exposure or the 0% rated Minimal.
How Lawai compares
Lawai's 96th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 78th ranking inside Hawaii does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 18 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Lawai ranks 1,412 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 11,736 by building count (1 is largest). Within Hawaii alone, it ranks 37 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
Lawai's 96th-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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Because 52.8% of Lawai'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.
Where Lawai's figures come from
Lawai's 96th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Lawai's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.