Colonial Beach, VA
Colonial Beach wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Colonial Beach lands at the 40th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a figure built from its 2,693 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Colonial Beach's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 38th percentile nationally.
Colonial Beach's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS puts 81% of Colonial Beach's 2,693 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 16.8% Direct and 2.3% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
Colonial Beach against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Colonial Beach's 40th national percentile and its 32nd percentile inside Virginia, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Colonial Beach ranks 19,021 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 5,943 by building count (1 is largest). Within Virginia alone, it ranks 462 of 681 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Virginia on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Colonial Beach
Colonial Beach's moderate wildfire rating (40th 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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Because 81% of Colonial Beach'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.
Where Colonial Beach's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 2,693 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Colonial Beach. The exposure-zones guide covers what Colonial Beach's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.