Barnstable Town, MA
Barnstable Town wildfire risk explained
Barnstable Town's 29,747 buildings earn a 25th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Barnstable Town at the 18th percentile, close to its 25th-percentile risk score.
Where Barnstable Town's buildings actually sit
Most of Barnstable Town's buildings (66.4% of 29,747) fall outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones entirely — that doesn't zero out the score above, it means the risk is regional, not structure-by-structure. At 29,747 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Barnstable Town against the rest of the country
Within Massachusetts, Barnstable Town ranks higher (45th percentile) than it does nationally (25th) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Barnstable Town ranks 23,572 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 389 by building count (1 is largest). Within Massachusetts alone, it ranks 138 of 248 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Massachusetts on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Barnstable Town's moderate rating (25th percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Even with 66.4% of Barnstable Town 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 Barnstable Town's figures come from
Barnstable Town's 25th-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 Barnstable Town's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.