Calabash, NC
How exposed is Calabash to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Calabash at the 82nd national percentile for risk to structures, in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a score built from 1,397 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 Calabash at the 78th percentile, close to its 82nd-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
47.9% of Calabash's 1,397 buildings fall in USFS's Indirect exposure zone — ember cast rather than direct flame — against 44.3% Direct and 7.8% Minimal. Vent screens and roofing material matter more here than lot clearing alone.
How Calabash compares
Calabash scores 82nd nationally and 89th within North Carolina — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Calabash ranks 5,681 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 9,640 by building count (1 is largest). Within North Carolina alone, it ranks 89 of 772 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for North Carolina on its state page.
Calabash and the insurance market
At the 82nd percentile nationally, Calabash carries the very high rating that has pushed some carriers to limit new business in similarly-scored places elsewhere in the country. Worth comparing quotes rather than assuming last year's renewal terms still apply.
Hardening a home in Calabash
Because 47.9% of Calabash'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
Every one of the two percentiles behind Calabash's 5,681-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Calabash, see the exposure-zones guide.