Baltimore, MD
Baltimore, MD's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS scores Baltimore at the 14th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally), a figure built from 226,220 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 Baltimore at the 14th percentile, close to its 14th-percentile risk score.
Where Baltimore's buildings actually sit
USFS classifies 94.9% of Baltimore's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 5.1% Direct and 0% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one. At 226,220 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Baltimore compares
There's little gap between Baltimore's 14th national percentile and its 12th percentile inside Maryland, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Baltimore ranks 27,070 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 21 by building count (1 is largest). Within Maryland alone, it ranks 465 of 527 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Maryland on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Baltimore
Baltimore's low rating (14th percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
Hardening a home in Baltimore
Even with 94.9% of Baltimore 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.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 226,220 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Baltimore. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Baltimore, see the exposure-zones guide.