Crestview, FL
Crestview wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Crestview lands at the 76th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 9,955 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Crestview's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 78th percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
58.5% of Crestview's 9,955 buildings fall in USFS's Indirect exposure zone — ember cast rather than direct flame — against 41.5% Direct and 0% Minimal. Vent screens and roofing material matter more here than lot clearing alone. At 9,955 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Crestview against the rest of the country
Inside Florida, Crestview sits at just the 38th percentile even though it scores 76th nationally — the state's overall wildfire exposure is high enough to make this a relatively quiet corner of it. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Crestview ranks 7,625 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,625 by building count (1 is largest). Within Florida alone, it ranks 588 of 955 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Florida on its state page.
Crestview and the insurance market
Crestview's 76th-percentile, 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
Crestview's 58.5% 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 Crestview's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 9,955 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Crestview. The exposure-zones guide covers what Crestview's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.