Arlington, TN
How exposed is Arlington to wildfire?
Arlington 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 5,057 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Arlington's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 62nd percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
5,057 buildings are counted in Arlington, and 52.5% of them are Indirect exposure — ember-driven risk rather than the 20.1% in Direct exposure or the 27.5% rated Minimal. At 5,057 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Arlington against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Arlington's 60th national percentile and its 53rd percentile inside Tennessee, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Arlington ranks 12,527 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 3,404 by building count (1 is largest). Within Tennessee alone, it ranks 237 of 502 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Tennessee on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Arlington
Arlington'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.
What would actually reduce this score
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Arlington (52.5% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
Where Arlington's figures come from
Arlington's 60th-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 Arlington's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.