Carbondale, PA
Carbondale wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Carbondale at the 52nd national percentile for risk to structures, modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — a score built from 3,708 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 Carbondale at the 51st percentile, close to its 52nd-percentile risk score.
Carbondale's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS puts 90% of Carbondale's 3,708 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 10% Direct and 0% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
Carbondale against the rest of the country
Compare Carbondale's two percentiles: 86th within Pennsylvania, only 52nd nationally — a gap of 34 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Carbondale ranks 15,139 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 4,514 by building count (1 is largest). Within Pennsylvania alone, it ranks 279 of 1,991 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Pennsylvania on its state page.
Carbondale and the insurance market
Carbondale's elevated rating (52nd 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
Because 90% of Carbondale'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.
Where Carbondale's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Carbondale's 15,139-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Carbondale's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.