Cumberland, MD
Cumberland, MD's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Cumberland at the 49th national percentile for risk to structures, modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — a score built from 8,214 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Cumberland at the 48th percentile, close to its 49th-percentile risk score.
Where Cumberland's buildings actually sit
USFS puts 90.1% of Cumberland's 8,214 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 9.9% Direct and 0% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to. At 8,214 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Cumberland compares
Within Maryland, Cumberland ranks higher (69th percentile) than it does nationally (49th) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Cumberland ranks 16,100 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 2,040 by building count (1 is largest). Within Maryland alone, it ranks 162 of 527 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Maryland on its state page.
Cumberland and the insurance market
Cumberland's elevated rating (49th 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
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Cumberland (90.1% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
Where Cumberland's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Cumberland's 16,100-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Cumberland's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.