Damascus, VA
Damascus wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Damascus at the 71st national percentile for risk to structures, well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a score built from 572 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Damascus's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 73rd percentile nationally.
Where Damascus's buildings actually sit
57.2% of Damascus's 572 buildings fall in USFS's Indirect exposure zone — ember cast rather than direct flame — against 42.8% Direct and 0% Minimal. Vent screens and roofing material matter more here than lot clearing alone.
How Damascus compares
Damascus's risk sits at a similar level relative to Virginia (84th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (71st) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Damascus ranks 9,094 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 16,226 by building count (1 is largest). Within Virginia alone, it ranks 108 of 681 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Virginia on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Damascus's 71st-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
Because 57.2% of Damascus'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.
More on how this number was built
Damascus's 71st-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Damascus, see the exposure-zones guide.