Butler, PA
Butler, PA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Out of every US place USFS scores, Butler lands at the 29th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a figure built from its 5,146 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 Butler at the 30th percentile, close to its 29th-percentile risk score.
Where Butler's buildings actually sit
Most of Butler's buildings (70.1%) sit in the Indirect zone, where wind-blown embers rather than flame front are the mechanism USFS is scoring — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing are the interventions this pattern favors, more than defensible space alone. At 5,146 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Butler compares
There's little gap between Butler's 29th national percentile and its 37th percentile inside Pennsylvania, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Butler ranks 22,354 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 3,352 by building count (1 is largest). Within Pennsylvania alone, it ranks 1,263 of 1,991 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Pennsylvania on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Butler's moderate rating (29th percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Butler (70.1% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
Where Butler's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Butler's 22,354-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Butler's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.