Dayton, KY
Dayton wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Dayton at the 10th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally), a figure built from 2,303 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Dayton at the 12th national percentile — 2 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Dayton's buildings actually sit
Most of Dayton's buildings (84.3% of 2,303) fall outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones entirely — that doesn't zero out the score above, it means the risk is regional, not structure-by-structure.
Where Dayton ranks
There's little gap between Dayton's 10th national percentile and its 10th percentile inside Kentucky, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Dayton ranks 28,234 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 6,694 by building count (1 is largest). Within Kentucky alone, it ranks 496 of 552 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Kentucky on its state page.
Dayton and the insurance market
Dayton's low wildfire rating (10th percentile) isn't the kind of score driving the carrier pullback making news in the highest-risk Western markets — but a standard homeowners quote is still worth comparing on its own terms.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Even with 84.3% of Dayton outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones, basic hardening — gutter maintenance, ember-resistant vents — is inexpensive relative to the regional burn-probability risk noted above. Details in the home-hardening guide.
Where Dayton's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Dayton's 28,234-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Dayton's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.