Winthrop, WA
Winthrop wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Winthrop at the 99th national percentile for risk to structures, in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a score built from 565 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Winthrop at the 100th percentile, close to its 99th-percentile risk score.
Winthrop's building exposure, zone by zone
565 buildings are counted in Winthrop, and 65.7% of them are Indirect exposure — ember-driven risk rather than the 34.3% in Direct exposure or the 0% rated Minimal.
How Winthrop compares
Winthrop's risk sits at a similar level relative to Washington (97th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (99th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Winthrop ranks 300 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 16,333 by building count (1 is largest). Within Washington alone, it ranks 18 of 628 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Washington on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Winthrop's 99th-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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Winthrop (65.7% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
Where Winthrop's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Winthrop's 300-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Winthrop's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.