Tacoma, WA
Tacoma, WA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Tacoma sits at the 14th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 82,896 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Tacoma at the 14th percentile, close to its 14th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
USFS classifies 99.2% of Tacoma's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 0.9% Direct and 0% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one. At 82,896 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Where Tacoma ranks
Tacoma scores 14th nationally and 17th 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, Tacoma ranks 27,121 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 90 by building count (1 is largest). Within Washington alone, it ranks 519 of 628 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Washington on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Tacoma
At the 14th national percentile, Tacoma rates low for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Even with 99.2% of Tacoma outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones, basic hardening — gutter maintenance, ember-resistant vents — is inexpensive relative to the regional burn-probability risk noted above. Details in the home-hardening guide.
Where Tacoma's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 82,896 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Tacoma. The exposure-zones guide covers what Tacoma's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.