Wailea, HI
How exposed is Wailea to wildfire?
Wailea's 3,001 buildings earn a 96th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Wailea's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 92nd percentile nationally.
Wailea's building exposure, zone by zone
Most of Wailea's buildings (81.4%) sit in the Indirect zone, where wind-blown embers rather than flame front are the mechanism USFS is scoring — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing are the interventions this pattern favors, more than defensible space alone.
Where Wailea ranks
There's little gap between Wailea's 96th national percentile and its 81st percentile inside Hawaii, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Wailea ranks 1,357 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 5,433 by building count (1 is largest). Within Hawaii alone, it ranks 35 of 163 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Hawaii on its state page.
Wailea and the insurance market
Wailea's 96th-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.
Hardening a home in Wailea
Because 81.4% of Wailea'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 Wailea's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Wailea's 1,357-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Wailea's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.