Cliffwood Beach, NJ
Cliffwood Beach wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Cliffwood Beach at the 65th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (well above the national norm for wildfire risk), a figure built from 1,326 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Cliffwood Beach at the 59th national percentile — 6 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Cliffwood Beach's building exposure, zone by zone
Cliffwood Beach rates 86.1% Minimal exposure against just 13.9% Direct and 0% Indirect — of 1,326 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually.
Cliffwood Beach against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Cliffwood Beach's 65th national percentile and its 74th percentile inside New Jersey, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Cliffwood Beach ranks 10,909 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 9,950 by building count (1 is largest). Within New Jersey alone, it ranks 182 of 700 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for New Jersey on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Cliffwood Beach
At the 65th percentile nationally, Cliffwood Beach carries the high rating that has pushed some carriers to limit new business in similarly-scored places elsewhere in the country. Worth comparing quotes rather than assuming last year's renewal terms still apply.
Hardening a home in Cliffwood Beach
Even with 86.1% of Cliffwood Beach 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.
More on how this number was built
Cliffwood Beach's 65th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Cliffwood Beach, see the exposure-zones guide.