Brookline, MA
How exposed is Brookline to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Brookline lands at the 17th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a figure built from its 9,348 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Brookline's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 16th percentile nationally.
Brookline's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS classifies 93.5% of Brookline's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 6.5% Direct and 0% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one. At 9,348 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Brookline compares
Brookline scores 17th nationally and 12th within Massachusetts — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Brookline ranks 26,188 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,755 by building count (1 is largest). Within Massachusetts alone, it ranks 219 of 248 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Massachusetts on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Brookline
Brookline's low wildfire rating (17th 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.
What would actually reduce this score
Brookline's 93.5% Minimal-exposure share means structure-level hardening matters less here than it would elsewhere — still worth the low-cost basics, per the home-hardening guide.
Where Brookline's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 9,348 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Brookline. The exposure-zones guide covers what Brookline's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.