Cotton Town, PA
Cotton Town, PA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS scores Cotton Town at the 47th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (modestly above the national average for wildfire risk), a figure built from 20 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Cotton Town's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 47th percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Indirect exposure is dominant in Cotton Town (65% of 20 buildings): far enough from burnable vegetation to avoid flame contact, close enough for wind-blown embers. Only 35% sit in the Direct zone. This is a small settlement by building count — 20 total — so these shares describe a handful of structures, not a statistical average across thousands.
Cotton Town against the rest of the country
Within Pennsylvania, Cotton Town ranks higher (75th percentile) than it does nationally (47th) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Cotton Town ranks 16,842 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 31,460 by building count (1 is largest). Within Pennsylvania alone, it ranks 496 of 1,991 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Pennsylvania on its state page.
Cotton Town and the insurance market
Cotton Town's elevated rating (47th percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Cotton Town (65% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
More on how this number was built
Cotton Town's 47th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. At 20 buildings, Cotton Town is close to the size where USFS's data gets thin — the data-quality guide explains why 517 places nationally get no score at all.