Broad Creek, NC
Broad Creek wildfire risk explained
Broad Creek's 1,314 buildings earn a 86th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Broad Creek at the 83rd percentile, close to its 86th-percentile risk score.
Where Broad Creek's buildings actually sit
Indirect exposure is dominant in Broad Creek (54.6% of 1,314 buildings): far enough from burnable vegetation to avoid flame contact, close enough for wind-blown embers. Only 41.3% sit in the Direct zone.
How Broad Creek compares
There's little gap between Broad Creek's 86th national percentile and its 94th percentile inside North Carolina, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Broad Creek ranks 4,514 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 9,997 by building count (1 is largest). Within North Carolina alone, it ranks 47 of 772 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for North Carolina on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Broad Creek's 86th-percentile, very 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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Broad Creek (54.6% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
More on how this number was built
Broad Creek's 86th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Broad Creek, see the exposure-zones guide.