Cambridge, MA
Cambridge wildfire risk explained
Cambridge sits at the 15th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 13,530 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Cambridge at the 14th percentile, close to its 15th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
99.7% of Cambridge's 13,530 buildings sit in USFS's Minimal exposure zone, with only 0.3% rated Direct — risk here comes from regional burn probability more than proximity to burnable vegetation at the structure itself. At 13,530 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Where Cambridge ranks
There's little gap between Cambridge's 15th national percentile and its 8th percentile inside Massachusetts, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Cambridge ranks 26,663 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,117 by building count (1 is largest). Within Massachusetts alone, it ranks 228 of 248 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Massachusetts on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Cambridge
At the 15th national percentile, Cambridge rates low for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
With 99.7% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Cambridge gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
Where Cambridge's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 13,530 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Cambridge. The exposure-zones guide covers what Cambridge's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.