Pepeekeo, HI
How exposed is Pepeekeo to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Pepeekeo lands at the 73rd percentile for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 634 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 Pepeekeo at the 68th percentile, close to its 73rd-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
70% of Pepeekeo's 634 buildings fall in USFS's Indirect exposure zone — ember cast rather than direct flame — against 30% Direct and 0% Minimal. Vent screens and roofing material matter more here than lot clearing alone.
Pepeekeo against the rest of the country
Pepeekeo's 73rd national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 5th ranking inside Hawaii does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 68 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Pepeekeo ranks 8,470 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 15,414 by building count (1 is largest). Within Hawaii alone, it ranks 155 of 163 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Hawaii on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Pepeekeo
Pepeekeo's 73rd-percentile, 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 ember exposure the dominant pattern in Pepeekeo (70% 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 634 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Pepeekeo. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Pepeekeo, see the exposure-zones guide.