Burlington, VT
Burlington wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Burlington lands at the 9th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a figure built from its 10,754 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Burlington at the 9th percentile, close to its 9th-percentile risk score.
Burlington's building exposure, zone by zone
10,754 buildings are counted in Burlington, and 57.1% of them are Indirect exposure — ember-driven risk rather than the 7.3% in Direct exposure or the 35.7% rated Minimal. At 10,754 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Where Burlington ranks
There's little gap between Burlington's 9th national percentile and its 5th percentile inside Vermont, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Burlington ranks 28,570 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,474 by building count (1 is largest). Within Vermont alone, it ranks 171 of 179 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Vermont on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Burlington's low wildfire rating (9th 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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Because 57.1% of Burlington's buildings sit in the Indirect zone, sealing the ember pathway (vents, roofing, gutters) is the intervention this page's data actually supports — see the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 10,754 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Burlington. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Burlington, see the exposure-zones guide.