Bowie, MD
Bowie wildfire risk explained
Bowie's 20,153 buildings earn a 35th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Bowie's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 34th percentile nationally.
Where Bowie's buildings actually sit
20,153 buildings are counted in Bowie, and 45.6% of them are Indirect exposure — ember-driven risk rather than the 26.3% in Direct exposure or the 28.1% rated Minimal. At 20,153 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Bowie compares
Compare Bowie's two percentiles: 53rd within Maryland, only 35th nationally — a gap of 18 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Bowie ranks 20,607 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 698 by building count (1 is largest). Within Maryland alone, it ranks 249 of 527 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Maryland on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Bowie
Bowie's moderate wildfire rating (35th percentile) isn't the kind of score driving the carrier pullback making news in the highest-risk Western markets — but a standard homeowners quote is still worth comparing on its own terms.
Hardening a home in Bowie
Because 45.6% of Bowie'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.
Where Bowie's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 20,153 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Bowie. The exposure-zones guide covers what Bowie's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.