Ashland, OH
How exposed is Ashland to wildfire?
USFS scores Ashland at the 22nd national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range), a figure built from 8,982 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Ashland at the 23rd percentile, close to its 22nd-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
54.7% of Ashland's 8,982 buildings sit in USFS's Minimal exposure zone, with only 17.8% rated Direct — risk here comes from regional burn probability more than proximity to burnable vegetation at the structure itself. At 8,982 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Where Ashland ranks
Within Ohio, Ashland ranks higher (54th percentile) than it does nationally (22nd) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Ashland ranks 24,526 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,854 by building count (1 is largest). Within Ohio alone, it ranks 587 of 1,264 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Ohio on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Ashland's moderate rating (22nd 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
Even with 54.7% of Ashland outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones, basic hardening — gutter maintenance, ember-resistant vents — is inexpensive relative to the regional burn-probability risk noted above. Details in the home-hardening guide.
Where Ashland's figures come from
Ashland's 22nd-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 Ashland's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.