Charleston, AR
How exposed is Charleston to wildfire?
Charleston's 1,557 buildings earn a 86th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Charleston at the 89th national percentile — 3 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
1,557 buildings are counted in Charleston, and 60.9% of them are Indirect exposure — ember-driven risk rather than the 39.1% in Direct exposure or the 0% rated Minimal.
Where Charleston ranks
Charleston scores 86th nationally and 94th within Arkansas — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Charleston ranks 4,497 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 8,931 by building count (1 is largest). Within Arkansas alone, it ranks 35 of 614 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Arkansas on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Charleston's 86th-percentile, very high rating is the kind of score behind a broader national pattern: insurers pulling back from the highest wildfire-risk markets, non-renewing or declining new policies outright, most visibly in California. Shopping around, not assuming automatic renewal, tends to matter here.
Hardening a home in Charleston
Because 60.9% of Charleston'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.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 1,557 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Charleston. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Charleston, see the exposure-zones guide.