Catonsville, MD
Catonsville wildfire risk explained
Catonsville's 11,938 buildings earn a 16th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Catonsville's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 14th percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Direct exposure dominates in Catonsville: 36.3% of its 11,938 buildings, versus 30.8% Indirect and 32.9% Minimal. Clearing space around a structure changes the outcome here more than any single building-material swap. At 11,938 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Catonsville against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Catonsville's 16th national percentile and its 16th percentile inside Maryland, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Catonsville ranks 26,566 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,306 by building count (1 is largest). Within Maryland alone, it ranks 442 of 527 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Maryland on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
At the 16th national percentile, Catonsville 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
Catonsville's 36.3% Direct-exposure share means lot clearing around the structure typically outweighs any single material upgrade here. The home-hardening guide ranks the options for a place shaped like this.
Where Catonsville's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 11,938 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Catonsville. The exposure-zones guide covers what Catonsville's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.