Amesbury, MA
How exposed is Amesbury to wildfire?
Amesbury sits at the 28th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 5,843 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Amesbury at the 23rd national percentile — 5 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Amesbury's building exposure, zone by zone
Indirect exposure is dominant in Amesbury (64.5% of 5,843 buildings): far enough from burnable vegetation to avoid flame contact, close enough for wind-blown embers. Only 26.5% sit in the Direct zone. At 5,843 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Amesbury against the rest of the country
Compare Amesbury's two percentiles: 63rd within Massachusetts, only 28th nationally — a gap of 36 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Amesbury ranks 22,851 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 2,947 by building count (1 is largest). Within Massachusetts alone, it ranks 92 of 248 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Massachusetts on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
At the 28th national percentile, Amesbury rates moderate for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
Hardening a home in Amesbury
Amesbury's 64.5% Indirect-exposure share points at embers, not flame contact, as the main pathway — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing rank ahead of defensible space here. Detail in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Amesbury's 22,851-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Amesbury, see the exposure-zones guide.