Bristow Cove, AL
How exposed is Bristow Cove to wildfire?
Bristow Cove's 478 buildings earn a 77th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — well above the national norm for wildfire risk. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Bristow Cove at the 80th percentile, close to its 77th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Direct exposure dominates in Bristow Cove: 99.2% of its 478 buildings, versus 0.8% Indirect and 0% Minimal. Clearing space around a structure changes the outcome here more than any single building-material swap.
Bristow Cove against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Bristow Cove's 77th national percentile and its 66th percentile inside Alabama, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Bristow Cove ranks 7,362 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 17,738 by building count (1 is largest). Within Alabama alone, it ranks 202 of 592 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Alabama on its state page.
Bristow Cove and the insurance market
Bristow Cove's 77th-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.
What would actually reduce this score
With 99.2% of Bristow Cove in Direct exposure, defensible-space clearing and ember-resistant construction (vents, Class-A roofing) address the exposure this page's own numbers describe, not a generic checklist. See the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 478 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Bristow Cove. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Bristow Cove, see the exposure-zones guide.