Beech Mountain, NC
Beech Mountain wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Beech Mountain lands at the 68th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 1,579 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Beech Mountain at the 70th percentile, close to its 68th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Direct exposure dominates in Beech Mountain: 82.3% of its 1,579 buildings, versus 17.7% Indirect and 0% Minimal. Clearing space around a structure changes the outcome here more than any single building-material swap.
Where Beech Mountain ranks
There's little gap between Beech Mountain's 68th national percentile and its 68th percentile inside North Carolina, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Beech Mountain ranks 10,001 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 8,839 by building count (1 is largest). Within North Carolina alone, it ranks 248 of 772 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for North Carolina on its state page.
Beech Mountain and the insurance market
Beech Mountain's high rating (68th percentile) puts it among the places where the national carrier-pullback trend is most relevant — not a guarantee of a coverage problem, but a reason to shop rather than assume.
What would actually reduce this score
Because Direct exposure dominates in Beech Mountain (82.3%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Beech Mountain's 68th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Beech Mountain, see the exposure-zones guide.