Bethesda, MD
Bethesda, MD's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Bethesda at the 12th national percentile for risk to structures, among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a score built from 17,655 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Bethesda's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 11th percentile nationally.
Bethesda's building exposure, zone by zone
Bethesda rates 63.3% Minimal exposure against just 36.8% Direct and 0% Indirect — of 17,655 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually. At 17,655 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Bethesda compares
Bethesda's risk sits at a similar level relative to Maryland (8th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (12th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Bethesda ranks 27,800 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 812 by building count (1 is largest). Within Maryland alone, it ranks 485 of 527 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Maryland on its state page.
Bethesda and the insurance market
Bethesda's low rating (12th percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
What would actually reduce this score
Bethesda's 63.3% Minimal-exposure share means structure-level hardening matters less here than it would elsewhere — still worth the low-cost basics, per the home-hardening guide.
Where Bethesda's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Bethesda's 27,800-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Bethesda's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.