Mountlake Terrace, WA
Mountlake Terrace wildfire risk explained
Mountlake Terrace sits at the 5th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 6,551 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Mountlake Terrace's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 6th percentile nationally.
Where Mountlake Terrace's buildings actually sit
Mountlake Terrace rates 97.3% Minimal exposure against just 2.8% Direct and 0% Indirect — of 6,551 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually. At 6,551 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Where Mountlake Terrace ranks
There's little gap between Mountlake Terrace's 5th national percentile and its 1st percentile inside Washington, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Mountlake Terrace ranks 29,897 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 2,649 by building count (1 is largest). Within Washington alone, it ranks 622 of 628 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Washington on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Mountlake Terrace
At the 5th national percentile, Mountlake Terrace rates low for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
What would actually reduce this score
With 97.3% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Mountlake Terrace gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 6,551 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Mountlake Terrace. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Mountlake Terrace, see the exposure-zones guide.