Albany, NY
How exposed is Albany to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Albany at the 13th national percentile for risk to structures, among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a score built from 28,511 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 Albany at the 13th percentile, close to its 13th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Most of Albany's buildings (68.9% of 28,511) fall outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones entirely — that doesn't zero out the score above, it means the risk is regional, not structure-by-structure. At 28,511 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Albany compares
Albany's 32nd-percentile standing inside New York outpaces its 13th national percentile — this is a hotter spot than most of its own state, even though the state as a whole runs cooler nationally. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Albany ranks 27,327 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 420 by building count (1 is largest). Within New York alone, it ranks 873 of 1,289 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for New York on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Albany
Albany's low wildfire rating (13th percentile) isn't the kind of score driving the carrier pullback making news in the highest-risk Western markets — but a standard homeowners quote is still worth comparing on its own terms.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
With 68.9% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Albany gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 28,511 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Albany. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Albany, see the exposure-zones guide.