Chesapeake City, MD
Chesapeake City wildfire risk explained
Chesapeake City sits at the 49th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 407 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Chesapeake City at the 50th national percentile — 1 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
USFS puts 73.2% of Chesapeake City's 407 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 22.1% Direct and 4.7% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
How Chesapeake City compares
Compare Chesapeake City's two percentiles: 68th within Maryland, only 49th nationally — a gap of 20 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Chesapeake City ranks 16,231 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 19,083 by building count (1 is largest). Within Maryland alone, it ranks 167 of 527 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Maryland on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Chesapeake City
Chesapeake City's elevated rating (49th percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Because 73.2% of Chesapeake City'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
Every one of the two percentiles behind Chesapeake City's 16,231-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Chesapeake City, see the exposure-zones guide.