Bear Lake, PA
How exposed is Bear Lake to wildfire?
USFS scores Bear Lake at the 39th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range), a figure built from 136 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Bear Lake at the 41st national percentile — 2 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
136 buildings are counted in Bear Lake, and 100% of them sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone — flame contact, not just ember cast, is the live possibility for most of them, against 0% rated Minimal.
Bear Lake against the rest of the country
Compare Bear Lake's two percentiles: 61st within Pennsylvania, only 39th nationally — a gap of 22 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Bear Lake ranks 19,144 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 27,464 by building count (1 is largest). Within Pennsylvania alone, it ranks 776 of 1,991 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Pennsylvania on its state page.
Bear Lake and the insurance market
At the 39th national percentile, Bear Lake rates moderate for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
Hardening a home in Bear Lake
Bear Lake's 100% Direct-exposure share means lot clearing around the structure typically outweighs any single material upgrade here. The home-hardening guide ranks the options for a place shaped like this.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 136 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Bear Lake. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Bear Lake, see the exposure-zones guide.