Benwood, WV
How exposed is Benwood to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Benwood at the 36th national percentile for risk to structures, close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a score built from 607 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Benwood at the 36th national percentile — 0 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Benwood's building exposure, zone by zone
80.6% of Benwood's 607 buildings fall in USFS's Indirect exposure zone — ember cast rather than direct flame — against 19.4% Direct and 0% Minimal. Vent screens and roofing material matter more here than lot clearing alone.
Benwood against the rest of the country
Benwood ranks lower within West Virginia (5th percentile statewide) than its 36th national percentile suggests alone — a calmer spot in a state where wildfire risk generally runs high. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Benwood ranks 20,346 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 15,742 by building count (1 is largest). Within West Virginia alone, it ranks 406 of 429 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for West Virginia on its state page.
Benwood and the insurance market
Benwood's moderate wildfire rating (36th 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.
What would actually reduce this score
Because 80.6% of Benwood'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
Every one of the two percentiles behind Benwood's 20,346-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Benwood, see the exposure-zones guide.