Lihue, HI
Lihue, HI's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS scores Lihue at the 88th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally), a figure built from 2,799 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Lihue at the 85th national percentile — 3 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Lihue's buildings actually sit
USFS classifies 56.6% of Lihue's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 20.3% Direct and 23.2% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one.
Where Lihue ranks
Inside Hawaii, Lihue sits at just the 38th percentile even though it scores 88th 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, Lihue ranks 3,684 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 5,765 by building count (1 is largest). Within Hawaii alone, it ranks 102 of 163 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Hawaii on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Lihue
Lihue's very high rating (88th percentile) puts it among the places where the national carrier-pullback trend is most relevant — not a guarantee of a coverage problem, but a reason to shop rather than assume.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
With 56.6% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Lihue gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
Where Lihue's figures come from
Lihue's 88th-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 Lihue's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.