Pahoa, HI
How exposed is Pahoa to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Pahoa lands at the 92nd percentile for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a figure built from its 703 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 Pahoa at the 89th percentile, close to its 92nd-percentile risk score.
Pahoa's building exposure, zone by zone
703 buildings are counted in Pahoa, and 58.3% of them sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone — flame contact, not just ember cast, is the live possibility for most of them, against 0% rated Minimal.
How Pahoa compares
Pahoa's 92nd national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 58th ranking inside Hawaii does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 34 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Pahoa ranks 2,455 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 14,619 by building count (1 is largest). Within Hawaii alone, it ranks 70 of 163 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Hawaii on its state page.
Pahoa and the insurance market
At the 92nd percentile nationally, Pahoa carries the very high rating that has pushed some carriers to limit new business in similarly-scored places elsewhere in the country. Worth comparing quotes rather than assuming last year's renewal terms still apply.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Pahoa's 58.3% Direct-exposure share means lot clearing around the structure typically outweighs any single material upgrade here. The home-hardening guide ranks the options for a place shaped like this.
Where Pahoa's figures come from
Pahoa's 92nd-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 Pahoa's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.