Pearl City, HI
Pearl City wildfire risk explained
Pearl City sits at the 97th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 11,778 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Pearl City's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 96th percentile nationally.
Where Pearl City's buildings actually sit
USFS puts 89.5% of Pearl City's 11,778 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 3.5% Direct and 7.1% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to. At 11,778 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Pearl City against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Pearl City's 97th national percentile and its 91st percentile inside Hawaii, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Pearl City ranks 845 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,325 by building count (1 is largest). Within Hawaii alone, it ranks 15 of 163 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Hawaii on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Pearl City
Pearl City's very high rating (97th 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 Pearl City
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Pearl City (89.5% 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
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 11,778 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Pearl City. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Pearl City, see the exposure-zones guide.