Cambridge, MD
Cambridge wildfire risk explained
Cambridge sits at the 76th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 5,287 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 76th percentile, close to its 76th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
USFS puts 58.2% of Cambridge's 5,287 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 17.8% Direct and 24% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to. At 5,287 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Cambridge compares
Compare Cambridge's two percentiles: 95th within Maryland, only 76th nationally — a gap of 19 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Cambridge ranks 7,529 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 3,264 by building count (1 is largest). Within Maryland alone, it ranks 26 of 527 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Maryland on its state page.
Cambridge and the insurance market
Cambridge's high rating (76th percentile) puts it among the places where the national carrier-pullback trend is most relevant — not a guarantee of a coverage problem, but a reason to shop rather than assume.
Hardening a home in Cambridge
Cambridge's 58.2% 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.
Where Cambridge's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 5,287 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Cambridge. The exposure-zones guide covers what Cambridge's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.