Athens, TX
How exposed is Athens to wildfire?
USFS scores Athens at the 75th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (well above the national norm for wildfire risk), a figure built from 5,738 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Athens's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 77th percentile nationally.
Athens's building exposure, zone by zone
Athens rates 38.7% Minimal exposure against just 23.4% Direct and 37.9% Indirect — of 5,738 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually. At 5,738 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Athens against the rest of the country
Inside Texas, Athens sits at just the 47th percentile even though it scores 75th nationally — the state's overall wildfire exposure is high enough to make this a relatively quiet corner of it. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Athens ranks 7,763 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 3,012 by building count (1 is largest). Within Texas alone, it ranks 944 of 1,795 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Texas on its state page.
Athens and the insurance market
At the 75th percentile nationally, Athens carries the high rating that has pushed some carriers to limit new business in similarly-scored places elsewhere in the country. Worth comparing quotes rather than assuming last year's renewal terms still apply.
Hardening a home in Athens
Athens's 38.7% 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 Athens's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Athens's 7,763-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Athens's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.