Benton, KY
Benton, KY's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Benton sits at the 44th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 2,718 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Benton at the 46th percentile, close to its 44th-percentile risk score.
Benton's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS classifies 72.2% of Benton's buildings as Direct exposure, higher than its 26.9% Indirect share and far above its 1% Minimal share — a profile where 1,961 structures sit close enough to vegetation that lot clearing matters most.
How Benton compares
Within Kentucky, Benton ranks higher (73rd percentile) than it does nationally (44th) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Benton ranks 17,733 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 5,900 by building count (1 is largest). Within Kentucky alone, it ranks 150 of 552 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Kentucky on its state page.
Benton and the insurance market
At the 44th national percentile, Benton rates elevated for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Benton's 72.2% Direct-exposure share means lot clearing around the structure typically outweighs any single material upgrade here. The home-hardening guide ranks the options for a place shaped like this.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Benton's 17,733-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Benton, see the exposure-zones guide.