Cherokee, AL
Cherokee, AL's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Cherokee's 687 buildings earn a 54th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Cherokee at the 56th percentile, close to its 54th-percentile risk score.
Where Cherokee's buildings actually sit
687 buildings are counted in Cherokee, and 68.4% 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.
Cherokee against the rest of the country
Cherokee's 54th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 11th ranking inside Alabama does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 43 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Cherokee ranks 14,360 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 14,788 by building count (1 is largest). Within Alabama alone, it ranks 526 of 592 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Alabama on its state page.
Cherokee and the insurance market
At the 54th national percentile, Cherokee rates elevated for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
What would actually reduce this score
With 68.4% of Cherokee in Direct exposure, defensible-space clearing and ember-resistant construction (vents, Class-A roofing) address the exposure this page's own numbers describe, not a generic checklist. See the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Cherokee's 14,360-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Cherokee, see the exposure-zones guide.