Selah, WA
How exposed is Selah to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Selah lands at the 87th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a figure built from its 3,030 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 Selah at the 89th percentile, close to its 87th-percentile risk score.
Where Selah's buildings actually sit
USFS puts 82.5% of Selah's 3,030 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 14.7% Direct and 2.8% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
Where Selah ranks
Selah scores 87th nationally and 78th within Washington — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Selah ranks 4,019 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 5,385 by building count (1 is largest). Within Washington alone, it ranks 141 of 628 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Washington on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Selah
At the 87th percentile nationally, Selah 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.
What would actually reduce this score
Because 82.5% of Selah's buildings sit in the Indirect zone, sealing the ember pathway (vents, roofing, gutters) is the intervention this page's data actually supports — see the home-hardening guide.
Where Selah's figures come from
Selah's 87th-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 Selah's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.