Ponderay, ID
Ponderay wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Ponderay at the 64th national percentile for risk to structures, well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a score built from 755 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Ponderay's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 58th percentile nationally.
Ponderay's building exposure, zone by zone
Most of Ponderay's buildings (71.1%) sit in the Indirect zone, where wind-blown embers rather than flame front are the mechanism USFS is scoring — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing are the interventions this pattern favors, more than defensible space alone.
Where Ponderay ranks
Ponderay's 64th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 30th ranking inside Idaho does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 33 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Ponderay ranks 11,496 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 14,061 by building count (1 is largest). Within Idaho alone, it ranks 162 of 232 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Idaho on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Ponderay's high rating (64th 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.
What would actually reduce this score
Ponderay's 71.1% Indirect-exposure share points at embers, not flame contact, as the main pathway — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing rank ahead of defensible space here. Detail in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Ponderay's 11,496-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Ponderay, see the exposure-zones guide.