Cottage City, MD
Cottage City wildfire risk explained
Cottage City sits at the 21st percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 437 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Cottage City at the 22nd national percentile — 1 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Cottage City's building exposure, zone by zone
Cottage City rates 97.5% Minimal exposure against just 2.5% Direct and 0% Indirect — of 437 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually.
How Cottage City compares
Cottage City scores 21st nationally and 27th within Maryland — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Cottage City ranks 24,996 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 18,517 by building count (1 is largest). Within Maryland alone, it ranks 386 of 527 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Maryland on its state page.
Cottage City and the insurance market
Cottage City's moderate rating (21st percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
What would actually reduce this score
Cottage City's 97.5% Minimal-exposure share means structure-level hardening matters less here than it would elsewhere — still worth the low-cost basics, per the home-hardening guide.
Where Cottage City's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 437 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Cottage City. The exposure-zones guide covers what Cottage City's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.