Cottage Grove, OR
Cottage Grove, OR's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Out of every US place USFS scores, Cottage Grove lands at the 51st percentile for wildfire risk to structures — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 4,406 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Cottage Grove at the 54th national percentile — 3 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
USFS puts 87.7% of Cottage Grove's 4,406 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 12.3% Direct and 0% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
Cottage Grove against the rest of the country
Cottage Grove scores 51st nationally and 47th within Oregon — 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 Grove ranks 15,479 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 3,878 by building count (1 is largest). Within Oregon alone, it ranks 222 of 420 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Oregon on its state page.
Cottage Grove and the insurance market
Cottage Grove sits in Oregon, one of two states that legally require a wildfire-risk disclosure at sale. Sellers here disclose wildfire-hazard status before closing, the same number this page reports at the 51st national percentile. More on the disclosure law.
What would actually reduce this score
Because 87.7% of Cottage Grove'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 Cottage Grove's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 4,406 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Cottage Grove. The exposure-zones guide covers what Cottage Grove's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.