McAlester, OK
McAlester, OK's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Out of every US place USFS scores, McAlester lands at the 97th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a figure built from its 9,403 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks McAlester at the 99th national percentile — 1 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
McAlester's building exposure, zone by zone
Indirect exposure is dominant in McAlester (68.6% of 9,403 buildings): far enough from burnable vegetation to avoid flame contact, close enough for wind-blown embers. Only 17.8% sit in the Direct zone. At 9,403 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Where McAlester ranks
McAlester scores 97th nationally and 94th within Oklahoma — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, McAlester ranks 925 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,739 by building count (1 is largest). Within Oklahoma alone, it ranks 50 of 834 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Oklahoma on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in McAlester
McAlester's 97th-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.
Hardening a home in McAlester
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in McAlester (68.6% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind McAlester's 925-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond McAlester, see the exposure-zones guide.