Belmont, WV
Belmont, WV's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Belmont at the 39th national percentile for risk to structures, close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a score built from 483 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Belmont at the 40th national percentile — 1 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
Most of Belmont's buildings (82.6%) sit in the Indirect zone, where wind-blown embers rather than flame front are the mechanism USFS is scoring — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing are the interventions this pattern favors, more than defensible space alone.
Where Belmont ranks
Inside West Virginia, Belmont sits at just the 12th percentile even though it scores 39th nationally — the state's overall wildfire exposure is high enough to make this a relatively quiet corner of it. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Belmont ranks 19,212 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 17,661 by building count (1 is largest). Within West Virginia alone, it ranks 379 of 429 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for West Virginia on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Belmont's moderate wildfire rating (39th percentile) isn't the kind of score driving the carrier pullback making news in the highest-risk Western markets — but a standard homeowners quote is still worth comparing on its own terms.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Because 82.6% of Belmont's buildings sit in the Indirect zone, sealing the ember pathway (vents, roofing, gutters) is the intervention this page's data actually supports — see the home-hardening guide.
Where Belmont's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 483 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Belmont. The exposure-zones guide covers what Belmont's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.