Bristol, VA
Bristol wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Bristol lands at the 62nd percentile for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 8,401 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Bristol at the 66th percentile, close to its 62nd-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
8,401 buildings are counted in Bristol, and 69.8% of them are Indirect exposure — ember-driven risk rather than the 27.6% in Direct exposure or the 2.6% rated Minimal. At 8,401 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Where Bristol ranks
Bristol scores 62nd nationally and 69th within Virginia — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Bristol ranks 12,019 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,980 by building count (1 is largest). Within Virginia alone, it ranks 208 of 681 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Virginia on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
At the 62nd percentile nationally, Bristol carries the high rating that has pushed some carriers to limit new business in similarly-scored places elsewhere in the country. Worth comparing quotes rather than assuming last year's renewal terms still apply.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Because 69.8% of Bristol'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
Every one of the two percentiles behind Bristol's 12,019-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Bristol, see the exposure-zones guide.