Arlington, VA
Arlington, VA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Out of every US place USFS scores, Arlington lands at the 13th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a figure built from its 44,241 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 Arlington at the 14th percentile, close to its 13th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
USFS classifies 84.6% of Arlington's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 15.5% Direct and 0% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one. At 44,241 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Arlington compares
Arlington scores 13th nationally and 4th 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, Arlington ranks 27,402 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 208 by building count (1 is largest). Within Virginia alone, it ranks 653 of 681 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Virginia on its state page.
Arlington and the insurance market
Arlington's low rating (13th percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Arlington's 84.6% Minimal-exposure share means structure-level hardening matters less here than it would elsewhere — still worth the low-cost basics, per the home-hardening guide.
Where Arlington's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 44,241 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Arlington. The exposure-zones guide covers what Arlington's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.