Arcola, VA
How exposed is Arcola to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Arcola lands at the 15th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a figure built from its 463 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Arcola at the 14th percentile, close to its 15th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
463 buildings are counted in Arcola, and 57.2% of them are Indirect exposure — ember-driven risk rather than the 42.8% in Direct exposure or the 0% rated Minimal.
How Arcola compares
Arcola scores 15th nationally and 5th within Virginia — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Arcola ranks 26,930 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 18,021 by building count (1 is largest). Within Virginia alone, it ranks 645 of 681 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Virginia on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Arcola
Arcola's low wildfire rating (15th 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.
What would actually reduce this score
Because 57.2% of Arcola's buildings sit in the Indirect zone, sealing the ember pathway (vents, roofing, gutters) is the intervention this page's data actually supports — see the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Arcola's 15th-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 Arcola, see the exposure-zones guide.