Asheville, NC
Asheville wildfire risk explained
Asheville's 34,937 buildings earn a 59th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Asheville at the 62nd national percentile — 3 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Asheville's building exposure, zone by zone
34,937 buildings are counted in Asheville, and 46.4% of them sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone — flame contact, not just ember cast, is the live possibility for most of them, against 10.2% rated Minimal. At 34,937 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Asheville against the rest of the country
Asheville's risk sits at a similar level relative to North Carolina (58th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (59th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Asheville ranks 12,965 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 310 by building count (1 is largest). Within North Carolina alone, it ranks 327 of 772 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for North Carolina on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Asheville's elevated rating (59th 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
Asheville's 46.4% 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 Asheville's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Asheville's 12,965-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Asheville's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.