Manchester, WA
How exposed is Manchester to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Manchester lands at the 17th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a figure built from its 2,658 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 Manchester at the 17th percentile, close to its 17th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Most of Manchester's buildings (45.9%) 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.
Manchester against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Manchester's 17th national percentile and its 23rd percentile inside Washington, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Manchester ranks 26,145 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 6,007 by building count (1 is largest). Within Washington alone, it ranks 481 of 628 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Washington on its state page.
Manchester and the insurance market
At the 17th national percentile, Manchester rates low for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
Hardening a home in Manchester
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Manchester (45.9% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
Where Manchester's figures come from
Manchester's 17th-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 Manchester's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.