Cucumber, WV
How exposed is Cucumber to wildfire?
Cucumber's 87 buildings earn a 88th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Cucumber at the 90th percentile, close to its 88th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
100% of Cucumber's 87 buildings sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone, roughly 87 structures close enough to burnable vegetation for flame contact, not just embers — 0% fall in the Indirect, ember-only zone and 0% are Minimal.
Where Cucumber ranks
Cucumber's risk sits at a similar level relative to West Virginia (77th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (88th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Cucumber ranks 3,861 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 29,637 by building count (1 is largest). Within West Virginia alone, it ranks 100 of 429 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for West Virginia on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Cucumber
Cucumber's 88th-percentile, very 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.
Hardening a home in Cucumber
Cucumber's 100% Direct-exposure share means lot clearing around the structure typically outweighs any single material upgrade here. The home-hardening guide ranks the options for a place shaped like this.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 87 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Cucumber. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Cucumber, see the exposure-zones guide.