Sun Lakes, AZ
Sun Lakes wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Sun Lakes at the 70th national percentile for risk to structures, well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a score built from 9,702 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Sun Lakes's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 75th percentile nationally.
Sun Lakes's building exposure, zone by zone
Indirect exposure is dominant in Sun Lakes (56.8% of 9,702 buildings): far enough from burnable vegetation to avoid flame contact, close enough for wind-blown embers. Only 6.5% sit in the Direct zone. At 9,702 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Sun Lakes against the rest of the country
Inside Arizona, Sun Lakes sits at just the 33rd percentile even though it scores 70th 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, Sun Lakes ranks 9,412 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,687 by building count (1 is largest). Within Arizona alone, it ranks 295 of 441 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Arizona on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Sun Lakes
Sun Lakes's high rating (70th 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.
Hardening a home in Sun Lakes
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Sun Lakes (56.8% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
Where Sun Lakes's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Sun Lakes's 9,412-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Sun Lakes's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.