Charleston, UT
Charleston wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Charleston at the 93rd national percentile for risk to structures, in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a score built from 462 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Charleston's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 91st percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
462 buildings are counted in Charleston, and 82.9% 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 Charleston ranks
Charleston's 93rd national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 69th ranking inside Utah does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 24 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Charleston ranks 2,156 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 18,037 by building count (1 is largest). Within Utah alone, it ranks 100 of 326 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Utah on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Charleston
Charleston's 93rd-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
Charleston's 82.9% 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
Charleston's 93rd-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Charleston, see the exposure-zones guide.