Belmont, VA
Belmont wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Belmont at the 13th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally), a figure built from 2,422 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 Belmont at the 12th percentile, close to its 13th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
2,422 buildings are counted in Belmont, and 52.5% of them are Indirect exposure — ember-driven risk rather than the 6.8% in Direct exposure or the 40.7% rated Minimal.
Where Belmont ranks
There's little gap between Belmont's 13th national percentile and its 4th percentile inside Virginia, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Belmont ranks 27,529 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 6,460 by building count (1 is largest). Within Virginia alone, it ranks 656 of 681 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Virginia on its state page.
Belmont and the insurance market
Belmont's low rating (13th 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
Belmont's 52.5% Indirect-exposure share points at embers, not flame contact, as the main pathway — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing rank ahead of defensible space here. Detail in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Belmont's 27,529-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Belmont, see the exposure-zones guide.