Pahala, HI
How exposed is Pahala to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Pahala lands at the 88th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a figure built from its 599 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 Pahala at the 84th percentile, close to its 88th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
75.1% of Pahala's 599 buildings fall in USFS's Indirect exposure zone — ember cast rather than direct flame — against 24.9% Direct and 0% Minimal. Vent screens and roofing material matter more here than lot clearing alone.
How Pahala compares
Inside Hawaii, Pahala sits at just the 33rd percentile even though it scores 88th 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, Pahala ranks 3,904 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 15,848 by building count (1 is largest). Within Hawaii alone, it ranks 110 of 163 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Hawaii on its state page.
Pahala and the insurance market
Pahala's very high rating (88th 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.
Hardening a home in Pahala
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Pahala (75.1% 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
Pahala's 88th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Pahala, see the exposure-zones guide.