Center Sandwich, NH
Center Sandwich wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Center Sandwich at the 19th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally), a figure built from 135 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Center Sandwich at the 20th national percentile — 1 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
135 buildings are counted in Center Sandwich, and 93.3% of them sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone — flame contact, not just ember cast, is the live possibility for most of them, against 0% rated Minimal.
Where Center Sandwich ranks
Center Sandwich's 59th-percentile standing inside New Hampshire outpaces its 19th national percentile — this is a hotter spot than most of its own state, even though the state as a whole runs cooler nationally. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Center Sandwich ranks 25,502 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 27,504 by building count (1 is largest). Within New Hampshire alone, it ranks 42 of 100 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for New Hampshire on its state page.
Center Sandwich and the insurance market
Center Sandwich's low wildfire rating (19th percentile) isn't the kind of score driving the carrier pullback making news in the highest-risk Western markets — but a standard homeowners quote is still worth comparing on its own terms.
Hardening a home in Center Sandwich
Because Direct exposure dominates in Center Sandwich (93.3%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Center Sandwich's 25,502-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Center Sandwich, see the exposure-zones guide.