Buffalo, OH
Buffalo, OH's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Buffalo at the 41st national percentile for risk to structures, modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — a score built from 335 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Buffalo at the 43rd national percentile — 2 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
USFS puts 68.7% of Buffalo's 335 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 31.3% Direct and 0% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
Where Buffalo ranks
Compare Buffalo's two percentiles: 88th within Ohio, only 41st nationally — a gap of 48 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Buffalo ranks 18,760 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 20,706 by building count (1 is largest). Within Ohio alone, it ranks 146 of 1,264 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Ohio on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Buffalo's elevated wildfire rating (41st 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
Buffalo's 68.7% Indirect-exposure share points at embers, not flame contact, as the main pathway — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing rank ahead of defensible space here. Detail in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Buffalo's 18,760-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Buffalo, see the exposure-zones guide.