Arab, AL
Arab wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Arab at the 68th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (well above the national norm for wildfire risk), a figure built from 4,483 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Arab's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 72nd percentile nationally.
Arab's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS classifies 57% of Arab's buildings as Direct exposure, higher than its 43% Indirect share and far above its 0% Minimal share — a profile where 2,555 structures sit close enough to vegetation that lot clearing matters most.
How Arab compares
Arab's 68th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 42nd ranking inside Alabama does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 26 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Arab ranks 10,135 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 3,808 by building count (1 is largest). Within Alabama alone, it ranks 346 of 592 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Alabama on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Arab
Arab's 68th-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.
What would actually reduce this score
Arab's 57% Direct-exposure share means lot clearing around the structure typically outweighs any single material upgrade here. The home-hardening guide ranks the options for a place shaped like this.
Where Arab's figures come from
Arab's 68th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Arab's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.