Big Sandy, WV
Big Sandy wildfire risk explained
Big Sandy's 137 buildings earn a 93rd-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Big Sandy's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 95th percentile nationally.
Big Sandy's building exposure, zone by zone
Most of Big Sandy's buildings (73.7%) sit in the Indirect zone, where wind-blown embers rather than flame front are the mechanism USFS is scoring — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing are the interventions this pattern favors, more than defensible space alone.
Where Big Sandy ranks
Big Sandy's risk sits at a similar level relative to West Virginia (91st percentile statewide) as it does nationally (93rd) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Big Sandy ranks 2,190 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 27,425 by building count (1 is largest). Within West Virginia alone, it ranks 41 of 429 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for West Virginia on its state page.
Big Sandy and the insurance market
Big Sandy's 93rd-percentile, very high rating is the kind of score behind a broader national pattern: insurers pulling back from the highest wildfire-risk markets, non-renewing or declining new policies outright, most visibly in California. Shopping around, not assuming automatic renewal, tends to matter here.
Hardening a home in Big Sandy
Because 73.7% of Big Sandy'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
Big Sandy's 93rd-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 Big Sandy, see the exposure-zones guide.