Chipley, FL
How exposed is Chipley to wildfire?
USFS scores Chipley at the 67th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (well above the national norm for wildfire risk), a figure built from 2,139 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Chipley at the 68th 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
59.8% of Chipley's 2,139 buildings sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone, roughly 1,280 structures close enough to burnable vegetation for flame contact, not just embers — 38.9% fall in the Indirect, ember-only zone and 1.3% are Minimal.
How Chipley compares
Inside Florida, Chipley sits at just the 23rd percentile even though it scores 67th 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, Chipley ranks 10,423 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 7,093 by building count (1 is largest). Within Florida alone, it ranks 735 of 955 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Florida on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Chipley's 67th-percentile, high rating is the kind of score behind a broader national pattern: insurers pulling back from the highest wildfire-risk markets, non-renewing or declining new policies outright, most visibly in California. Shopping around, not assuming automatic renewal, tends to matter here.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Because Direct exposure dominates in Chipley (59.8%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 2,139 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Chipley. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Chipley, see the exposure-zones guide.