Soap Lake, WA
Soap Lake wildfire risk explained
Soap Lake sits at the 93rd 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 1,064 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Soap Lake's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 93rd percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
97.1% of Soap Lake's 1,064 buildings fall in USFS's Indirect exposure zone — ember cast rather than direct flame — against 2.4% Direct and 0.6% Minimal. Vent screens and roofing material matter more here than lot clearing alone.
Where Soap Lake ranks
There's little gap between Soap Lake's 93rd national percentile and its 84th percentile inside Washington, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Soap Lake ranks 2,348 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 11,498 by building count (1 is largest). Within Washington alone, it ranks 104 of 628 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Washington on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Soap Lake's 93rd-percentile, very 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 97.1% of Soap Lake'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 Soap Lake's figures come from
Soap Lake's 93rd-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 Soap Lake's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.