Columbia, MS
Columbia wildfire risk explained
Columbia's 4,072 buildings earn a 84th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Columbia's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 87th percentile nationally.
Columbia's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS puts 56.5% of Columbia's 4,072 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 43.5% Direct and 0% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
How Columbia compares
Columbia scores 84th nationally and 87th within Mississippi — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Columbia ranks 5,139 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 4,167 by building count (1 is largest). Within Mississippi alone, it ranks 56 of 420 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Mississippi on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Columbia's 84th-percentile, very 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.
What would actually reduce this score
Columbia's 56.5% Indirect-exposure share points at embers, not flame contact, as the main pathway — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing rank ahead of defensible space here. Detail in the home-hardening guide.
Where Columbia's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Columbia's 5,139-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Columbia's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.