Chapel Hill, NC
Chapel Hill, NC's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Chapel Hill at the 29th national percentile for risk to structures, close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a score built from 14,164 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Chapel Hill at the 31st national percentile — 2 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Chapel Hill's buildings actually sit
63.1% of Chapel Hill's 14,164 buildings sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone, roughly 8,935 structures close enough to burnable vegetation for flame contact, not just embers — 34% fall in the Indirect, ember-only zone and 2.9% are Minimal. At 14,164 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Chapel Hill against the rest of the country
Chapel Hill ranks lower within North Carolina (2nd percentile statewide) than its 29th national percentile suggests alone — a calmer spot in a state where wildfire risk generally runs high. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Chapel Hill ranks 22,479 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,059 by building count (1 is largest). Within North Carolina alone, it ranks 756 of 772 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for North Carolina on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Chapel Hill's moderate wildfire rating (29th 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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Chapel Hill's 63.1% 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.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Chapel Hill's 22,479-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Chapel Hill, see the exposure-zones guide.