Lewiston, ME
Lewiston wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Lewiston at the 8th national percentile for risk to structures, among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a score built from 12,137 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Lewiston's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 8th percentile nationally.
Lewiston's building exposure, zone by zone
Most of Lewiston's buildings (49.4%) sit in the Indirect zone, where wind-blown embers rather than flame front are the mechanism USFS is scoring — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing are the interventions this pattern favors, more than defensible space alone. At 12,137 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Lewiston against the rest of the country
Within Maine, Lewiston ranks higher (27th percentile) than it does nationally (8th) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Lewiston ranks 29,089 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,283 by building count (1 is largest). Within Maine alone, it ranks 116 of 155 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Maine on its state page.
Lewiston and the insurance market
Lewiston's low wildfire rating (8th 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.
Hardening a home in Lewiston
Because 49.4% of Lewiston'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 Lewiston's figures come from
Lewiston's 8th-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 Lewiston's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.