Olowalu, HI
Olowalu, HI's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS scores Olowalu at the 98th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally), a figure built from 71 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Olowalu at the 98th percentile, close to its 98th-percentile risk score.
Olowalu's building exposure, zone by zone
71 buildings are counted in Olowalu, and 85.9% of them sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone — flame contact, not just ember cast, is the live possibility for most of them, against 1.4% rated Minimal.
How Olowalu compares
There's little gap between Olowalu's 98th national percentile and its 94th percentile inside Hawaii, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Olowalu ranks 537 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 30,237 by building count (1 is largest). Within Hawaii alone, it ranks 10 of 163 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Hawaii on its state page.
Olowalu and the insurance market
Olowalu's 98th-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.
What would actually reduce this score
With 85.9% of Olowalu 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.
Where Olowalu's figures come from
Olowalu's 98th-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 Olowalu's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.