Apex, NC
Apex wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Apex at the 43rd national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (modestly above the national average for wildfire risk), a figure built from 20,523 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Apex at the 44th percentile, close to its 43rd-percentile risk score.
Where Apex's buildings actually sit
41% of Apex's 20,523 buildings fall in USFS's Indirect exposure zone — ember cast rather than direct flame — against 33.6% Direct and 25.5% Minimal. Vent screens and roofing material matter more here than lot clearing alone. At 20,523 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Apex against the rest of the country
Inside North Carolina, Apex sits at just the 20th percentile even though it scores 43rd nationally — the state's overall wildfire exposure is high enough to make this a relatively quiet corner of it. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Apex ranks 18,121 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 685 by building count (1 is largest). Within North Carolina alone, it ranks 617 of 772 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for North Carolina on its state page.
Apex and the insurance market
Apex's elevated rating (43rd percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
What would actually reduce this score
Apex's 41% 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
Apex's 43rd-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Apex, see the exposure-zones guide.