Mertarvik, AK
Mertarvik, AK's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Mertarvik's 16 buildings earn a 86th-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, Mertarvik's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 86th percentile nationally.
Mertarvik's building exposure, zone by zone
Of Mertarvik's 16 counted buildings, 100% carry Direct exposure and only 0% carry Minimal — a lopsided split that puts defensible-space clearing ahead of vents or roofing as the intervention worth doing first. This is a small settlement by building count — 16 total — so these shares describe a handful of structures, not a statistical average across thousands.
Mertarvik against the rest of the country
Inside Alaska, Mertarvik sits at just the 70th percentile even though it scores 86th 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, Mertarvik ranks 4,560 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 31,482 by building count (1 is largest). Within Alaska alone, it ranks 98 of 322 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Alaska on its state page.
Mertarvik and the insurance market
Mertarvik's very high rating (86th 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.
What would actually reduce this score
With 100% of Mertarvik in Direct exposure, defensible-space clearing and ember-resistant construction (vents, Class-A roofing) address the exposure this page's own numbers describe, not a generic checklist. See the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 16 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Mertarvik. At 16 buildings, Mertarvik is close to the size where USFS's data gets thin — the data-quality guide explains why 517 places nationally get no score at all.