Bessemer, AL
Bessemer, AL's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS scores Bessemer at the 68th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (well above the national norm for wildfire risk), a figure built from 14,018 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Bessemer at the 71st percentile, close to its 68th-percentile risk score.
Bessemer's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS puts 48.7% of Bessemer's 14,018 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 25.3% Direct and 26.1% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to. At 14,018 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Bessemer against the rest of the country
Inside Alabama, Bessemer sits at just the 42nd percentile even though it scores 68th 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, Bessemer ranks 10,009 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,070 by building count (1 is largest). Within Alabama alone, it ranks 343 of 592 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Alabama on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
At the 68th percentile nationally, Bessemer carries the high rating that has pushed some carriers to limit new business in similarly-scored places elsewhere in the country. Worth comparing quotes rather than assuming last year's renewal terms still apply.
Hardening a home in Bessemer
Bessemer's 48.7% Indirect-exposure share points at embers, not flame contact, as the main pathway — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing rank ahead of defensible space here. Detail in the home-hardening guide.
Where Bessemer's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 14,018 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Bessemer. The exposure-zones guide covers what Bessemer's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.