Cheat Lake, WV
Cheat Lake, WV's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Out of every US place USFS scores, Cheat Lake lands at the 43rd percentile for wildfire risk to structures — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 4,113 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Cheat Lake at the 43rd national percentile — 0 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Cheat Lake's buildings actually sit
4,113 buildings are counted in Cheat Lake, and 72.7% of them sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone — flame contact, not just ember cast, is the live possibility for most of them, against 0.3% rated Minimal.
Where Cheat Lake ranks
Inside West Virginia, Cheat Lake sits at just the 24th percentile even though it scores 43rd nationally — the state's overall wildfire exposure is high enough to make this a relatively quiet corner of it. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Cheat Lake ranks 17,888 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 4,132 by building count (1 is largest). Within West Virginia alone, it ranks 325 of 429 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for West Virginia on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Cheat Lake
Cheat Lake's elevated wildfire rating (43rd 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 Cheat Lake
Because Direct exposure dominates in Cheat Lake (72.7%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
Where Cheat Lake's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Cheat Lake's 17,888-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Cheat Lake's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.