Belfast, ME
Belfast, ME's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Belfast's 4,023 buildings earn a 10th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Belfast's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 10th percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Of Belfast's 4,023 counted buildings, 60% carry Direct exposure and only 1.1% carry Minimal — a lopsided split that puts defensible-space clearing ahead of vents or roofing as the intervention worth doing first.
How Belfast compares
Within Maine, Belfast ranks higher (51st percentile) than it does nationally (10th) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Belfast ranks 28,339 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 4,228 by building count (1 is largest). Within Maine alone, it ranks 75 of 155 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Maine on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Belfast's low rating (10th percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
What would actually reduce this score
With 60% of Belfast in Direct exposure, defensible-space clearing and ember-resistant construction (vents, Class-A roofing) address the exposure this page's own numbers describe, not a generic checklist. See the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Belfast's 28,339-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Belfast, see the exposure-zones guide.