Athens, OH
Athens, OH's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Athens at the 40th national percentile for risk to structures, close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a score built from 4,973 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Athens at the 40th national percentile — 1 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Athens's buildings actually sit
Most of Athens's buildings (71.5%) sit in the Indirect zone, where wind-blown embers rather than flame front are the mechanism USFS is scoring — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing are the interventions this pattern favors, more than defensible space alone.
How Athens compares
Athens's 87th-percentile standing inside Ohio outpaces its 40th national percentile — this is a hotter spot than most of its own state, even though the state as a whole runs cooler nationally. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Athens ranks 19,013 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 3,442 by building count (1 is largest). Within Ohio alone, it ranks 171 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
Athens's moderate rating (40th 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
Because 71.5% of Athens'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
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 4,973 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Athens. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Athens, see the exposure-zones guide.