Chillum, MD
How exposed is Chillum to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Chillum at the 22nd national percentile for risk to structures, close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a score built from 5,751 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Chillum at the 23rd percentile, close to its 22nd-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
94.1% of Chillum's 5,751 buildings sit in USFS's Minimal exposure zone, with only 5.9% rated Direct — risk here comes from regional burn probability more than proximity to burnable vegetation at the structure itself. At 5,751 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Chillum compares
Chillum's risk sits at a similar level relative to Maryland (30th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (22nd) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Chillum ranks 24,647 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 3,004 by building count (1 is largest). Within Maryland alone, it ranks 367 of 527 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Maryland on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Chillum's moderate rating (22nd percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
Hardening a home in Chillum
Even with 94.1% of Chillum outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones, basic hardening — gutter maintenance, ember-resistant vents — is inexpensive relative to the regional burn-probability risk noted above. Details in the home-hardening guide.
Where Chillum's figures come from
Chillum's 22nd-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Chillum's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.