Amherst, VA
Amherst wildfire risk explained
Amherst sits at the 60th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 1,156 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Amherst's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 62nd percentile nationally.
Amherst's building exposure, zone by zone
Of Amherst's 1,156 counted buildings, 70.5% carry Direct exposure and only 0% carry Minimal — a lopsided split that puts defensible-space clearing ahead of vents or roofing as the intervention worth doing first.
How Amherst compares
There's little gap between Amherst's 60th national percentile and its 67th percentile inside Virginia, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Amherst ranks 12,530 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 10,912 by building count (1 is largest). Within Virginia alone, it ranks 225 of 681 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Virginia on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Amherst's 60th-percentile, 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 Amherst
Because Direct exposure dominates in Amherst (70.5%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 1,156 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Amherst. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Amherst, see the exposure-zones guide.