Auburn, AL
Auburn, AL's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Auburn's 21,407 buildings earn a 81st-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Auburn at the 84th percentile, close to its 81st-percentile risk score.
Auburn's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS puts 45.3% of Auburn's 21,407 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 41.7% Direct and 13% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to. At 21,407 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Auburn compares
There's little gap between Auburn's 81st national percentile and its 78th percentile inside Alabama, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Auburn ranks 6,006 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 650 by building count (1 is largest). Within Alabama alone, it ranks 130 of 592 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Alabama on its state page.
Auburn and the insurance market
At the 81st percentile nationally, Auburn carries the very 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 Auburn
Auburn's 45.3% Indirect-exposure share points at embers, not flame contact, as the main pathway — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing rank ahead of defensible space here. Detail in the home-hardening guide.
Where Auburn's figures come from
Auburn's 81st-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 Auburn's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.