Bluewell, WV
How exposed is Bluewell to wildfire?
USFS scores Bluewell at the 72nd national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (well above the national norm for wildfire risk), a figure built from 1,418 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 Bluewell at the 75th percentile, close to its 72nd-percentile risk score.
Bluewell's building exposure, zone by zone
1,418 buildings are counted in Bluewell, and 56.4% of them sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone — flame contact, not just ember cast, is the live possibility for most of them, against 0% rated Minimal.
How Bluewell compares
Bluewell's risk sits at a similar level relative to West Virginia (66th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (72nd) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Bluewell ranks 8,747 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 9,552 by building count (1 is largest). Within West Virginia alone, it ranks 148 of 429 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for West Virginia on its state page.
Bluewell and the insurance market
Bluewell's 72nd-percentile, 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 Bluewell
Because Direct exposure dominates in Bluewell (56.4%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Bluewell's 72nd-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Bluewell, see the exposure-zones guide.