Pilot Station, AK
How exposed is Pilot Station to wildfire?
USFS scores Pilot Station at the 63rd national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (well above the national norm for wildfire risk), a figure built from 162 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Pilot Station's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 64th percentile nationally.
Where Pilot Station's buildings actually sit
USFS classifies 74.7% of Pilot Station's buildings as Direct exposure, higher than its 19.1% Indirect share and far above its 6.2% Minimal share — a profile where 121 structures sit close enough to vegetation that lot clearing matters most.
Where Pilot Station ranks
Inside Alaska, Pilot Station sits at just the 48th percentile even though it scores 63rd 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, Pilot Station ranks 11,586 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 26,315 by building count (1 is largest). Within Alaska alone, it ranks 169 of 322 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Alaska on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Pilot Station
Pilot Station's 63rd-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
Because Direct exposure dominates in Pilot Station (74.7%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Pilot Station's 63rd-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Pilot Station, see the exposure-zones guide.