Andover, MA
Andover, MA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Andover's 2,842 buildings earn a 29th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Andover at the 24th national percentile — 5 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Andover's buildings actually sit
Only 18.2% of Andover's 2,842 buildings carry Direct exposure and 16.5% carry Indirect; the remaining 65.3% are Minimal, which shifts the risk driving this page's score toward the surrounding landscape rather than any one structure.
How Andover compares
Within Massachusetts, Andover ranks higher (71st percentile) than it does nationally (29th) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Andover ranks 22,377 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 5,674 by building count (1 is largest). Within Massachusetts alone, it ranks 72 of 248 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Massachusetts on its state page.
Andover and the insurance market
Andover's moderate wildfire rating (29th 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.
Hardening a home in Andover
With 65.3% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Andover gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
Where Andover's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Andover's 22,377-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Andover's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.