Belspring, VA
Belspring wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Belspring at the 66th national percentile for risk to structures, well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a score built from 181 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Belspring's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 69th percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
72.4% of Belspring's 181 buildings sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone, roughly 131 structures close enough to burnable vegetation for flame contact, not just embers — 27.6% fall in the Indirect, ember-only zone and 0% are Minimal.
Belspring against the rest of the country
Belspring scores 66th nationally and 78th within Virginia — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Belspring ranks 10,670 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 25,602 by building count (1 is largest). Within Virginia alone, it ranks 151 of 681 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Virginia on its state page.
Belspring and the insurance market
Belspring's 66th-percentile, high rating is the kind of score behind a broader national pattern: insurers pulling back from the highest wildfire-risk markets, non-renewing or declining new policies outright, most visibly in California. Shopping around, not assuming automatic renewal, tends to matter here.
What would actually reduce this score
With 72.4% of Belspring 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 Belspring's 10,670-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Belspring, see the exposure-zones guide.