Buffalo, NY
How exposed is Buffalo to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Buffalo at the 21st national percentile for risk to structures, close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a score built from 97,296 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Buffalo at the 22nd percentile, close to its 21st-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Only 0.7% of Buffalo's 97,296 buildings carry Direct exposure and 0% carry Indirect; the remaining 99.3% are Minimal, which shifts the risk driving this page's score toward the surrounding landscape rather than any one structure. At 97,296 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Where Buffalo ranks
Within New York, Buffalo ranks higher (46th percentile) than it does nationally (21st) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Buffalo ranks 24,901 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 68 by building count (1 is largest). Within New York alone, it ranks 693 of 1,289 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for New York on its state page.
Buffalo and the insurance market
At the 21st national percentile, Buffalo rates moderate for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
What would actually reduce this score
Even with 99.3% of Buffalo outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones, basic hardening — gutter maintenance, ember-resistant vents — is inexpensive relative to the regional burn-probability risk noted above. Details in the home-hardening guide.
Where Buffalo's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Buffalo's 24,901-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Buffalo's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.