St. Helens, OR
St. Helens, OR's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
St. Helens sits at the 21st percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 5,354 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks St. Helens at the 23rd national percentile — 2 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where St. Helens's buildings actually sit
5,354 buildings are counted in St. Helens, and 91.2% of them are Indirect exposure — ember-driven risk rather than the 6.7% in Direct exposure or the 2.1% rated Minimal. At 5,354 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How St. Helens compares
St. Helens's risk sits at a similar level relative to Oregon (15th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (21st) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, St. Helens ranks 24,876 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 3,219 by building count (1 is largest). Within Oregon alone, it ranks 356 of 420 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Oregon on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
St. Helens sits in Oregon, one of two states that legally require a wildfire-risk disclosure at sale. Sellers here disclose wildfire-hazard status before closing, the same number this page reports at the 21st national percentile. More on the disclosure law.
What would actually reduce this score
Because 91.2% of St. Helens'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 St. Helens's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 5,354 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for St. Helens. The exposure-zones guide covers what St. Helens's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.