WildfireRiskFinder

Benns Church, VA

Benns Church, VA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers

Elevated
53rdpercentile nationally

USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Benns Church at the 53rd national percentile for risk to structures, modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — a score built from 718 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)

Separately from the risk score above, Benns Church's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 51st percentile nationally.

What "at risk" means for the buildings here

718Total buildings
40.1%Direct exposure
59.2%Indirect exposure
0.7%Minimal exposure

USFS puts 59.2% of Benns Church's 718 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 40.1% Direct and 0.7% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.

Benns Church against the rest of the country

Benns Church scores 53rd nationally and 58th 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, Benns Church ranks 14,736 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 14,490 by building count (1 is largest). Within Virginia alone, it ranks 284 of 681 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Virginia on its state page.

Benns Church and the insurance market

Benns Church's elevated wildfire rating (53rd 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 59.2% of Benns Church'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.

More on how this number was built

Benns Church's 53rd-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Benns Church, see the exposure-zones guide.