Blue Ball, PA
Blue Ball wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Blue Ball at the 4th national percentile for risk to structures, among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a score built from 507 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Blue Ball at the 4th percentile, close to its 4th-percentile risk score.
Blue Ball's building exposure, zone by zone
Only 22.7% of Blue Ball's 507 buildings carry Direct exposure and 0.2% carry Indirect; the remaining 77.1% are Minimal, which shifts the risk driving this page's score toward the surrounding landscape rather than any one structure.
Blue Ball against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Blue Ball's 4th national percentile and its 2nd percentile inside Pennsylvania, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Blue Ball ranks 30,305 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 17,229 by building count (1 is largest). Within Pennsylvania alone, it ranks 1,961 of 1,991 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Pennsylvania on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Blue Ball
Blue Ball's low rating (4th percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Even with 77.1% of Blue Ball outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones, basic hardening — gutter maintenance, ember-resistant vents — is inexpensive relative to the regional burn-probability risk noted above. Details in the home-hardening guide.
Where Blue Ball's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 507 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Blue Ball. The exposure-zones guide covers what Blue Ball's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.