Valdez, CO
Valdez, CO's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS scores Valdez at the 94th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally), a figure built from 64 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Valdez at the 90th national percentile — 4 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Valdez's building exposure, zone by zone
Direct exposure dominates in Valdez: 100% of its 64 buildings, versus 0% Indirect and 0% Minimal. Clearing space around a structure changes the outcome here more than any single building-material swap.
Valdez against the rest of the country
Valdez scores 94th nationally and 82nd within Colorado — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Valdez ranks 2,009 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 30,496 by building count (1 is largest). Within Colorado alone, it ranks 87 of 472 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Colorado on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
At the 94th percentile nationally, Valdez 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
With 100% of Valdez in Direct exposure, defensible-space clearing and ember-resistant construction (vents, Class-A roofing) address the exposure this page's own numbers describe, not a generic checklist. See the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Valdez's 2,009-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Valdez, see the exposure-zones guide.