Chicopee, MA
Chicopee wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Chicopee lands at the 14th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a figure built from its 20,739 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Chicopee at the 13th percentile, close to its 14th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Most of Chicopee's buildings (61.9% of 20,739) fall outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones entirely — that doesn't zero out the score above, it means the risk is regional, not structure-by-structure. At 20,739 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Chicopee against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Chicopee's 14th national percentile and its 4th percentile inside Massachusetts, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Chicopee ranks 27,073 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 681 by building count (1 is largest). Within Massachusetts alone, it ranks 239 of 248 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Massachusetts on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Chicopee's low wildfire rating (14th 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.
What would actually reduce this score
With 61.9% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Chicopee gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
Where Chicopee's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 20,739 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Chicopee. The exposure-zones guide covers what Chicopee's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.