Braddock Heights, MD
Braddock Heights wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Braddock Heights at the 26th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range), a figure built from 1,399 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Braddock Heights at the 23rd national percentile — 3 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Direct exposure dominates in Braddock Heights: 97.1% of its 1,399 buildings, versus 2.9% Indirect and 0% Minimal. Clearing space around a structure changes the outcome here more than any single building-material swap.
Where Braddock Heights ranks
Braddock Heights scores 26th nationally and 38th within Maryland — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Braddock Heights ranks 23,287 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 9,632 by building count (1 is largest). Within Maryland alone, it ranks 326 of 527 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Maryland on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Braddock Heights's moderate rating (26th 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
Braddock Heights's 97.1% Direct-exposure share means lot clearing around the structure typically outweighs any single material upgrade here. The home-hardening guide ranks the options for a place shaped like this.
More on how this number was built
Braddock Heights's 26th-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 Braddock Heights, see the exposure-zones guide.