Brookside, DE
How exposed is Brookside to wildfire?
Brookside sits at the 33rd percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 4,412 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Brookside at the 34th national percentile — 1 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
91.1% of Brookside's 4,412 buildings sit in USFS's Minimal exposure zone, with only 8.9% rated Direct — risk here comes from regional burn probability more than proximity to burnable vegetation at the structure itself.
Brookside against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Brookside's 33rd national percentile and its 27th percentile inside Delaware, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Brookside ranks 20,980 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 3,870 by building count (1 is largest). Within Delaware alone, it ranks 58 of 79 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Delaware on its state page.
Brookside and the insurance market
Brookside's moderate wildfire rating (33rd 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.
Hardening a home in Brookside
With 91.1% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Brookside gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
Where Brookside's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 4,412 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Brookside. The exposure-zones guide covers what Brookside's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.