Decatur, AL
How exposed is Decatur to wildfire?
USFS scores Decatur at the 41st national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (modestly above the national average for wildfire risk), a figure built from 25,104 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Decatur's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 43rd percentile nationally.
Decatur's building exposure, zone by zone
Decatur rates 54.2% Minimal exposure against just 24.4% Direct and 21.4% Indirect — of 25,104 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually. At 25,104 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Decatur compares
Decatur ranks lower within Alabama (4th percentile statewide) than its 41st national percentile suggests alone — a calmer spot in a state where wildfire risk generally runs high. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Decatur ranks 18,646 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 505 by building count (1 is largest). Within Alabama alone, it ranks 571 of 592 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Alabama on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Decatur's elevated wildfire rating (41st 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.
Hardening a home in Decatur
Even with 54.2% of Decatur 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.
More on how this number was built
Decatur's 41st-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Decatur, see the exposure-zones guide.