Columbus, OH
Columbus wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Columbus at the 11th national percentile for risk to structures, among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a score built from 273,823 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 Columbus at the 13th percentile, close to its 11th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
94.4% of Columbus's 273,823 buildings sit in USFS's Minimal exposure zone, with only 4.3% rated Direct — risk here comes from regional burn probability more than proximity to burnable vegetation at the structure itself. At 273,823 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Where Columbus ranks
Columbus's 33rd-percentile standing inside Ohio outpaces its 11th national percentile — this is a hotter spot than most of its own state, even though the state as a whole runs cooler nationally. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Columbus ranks 28,183 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 14 by building count (1 is largest). Within Ohio alone, it ranks 847 of 1,264 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Ohio on its state page.
Columbus and the insurance market
Columbus's low wildfire rating (11th 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
With 94.4% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Columbus gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
Where Columbus's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Columbus's 28,183-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Columbus's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.