Decatur, MS
Decatur wildfire risk explained
Decatur sits at the 60th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 886 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Decatur at the 63rd percentile, close to its 60th-percentile risk score.
Decatur's building exposure, zone by zone
886 buildings are counted in Decatur, and 78.8% of them sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone — flame contact, not just ember cast, is the live possibility for most of them, against 0% rated Minimal.
Where Decatur ranks
Inside Mississippi, Decatur sits at just the 35th percentile even though it scores 60th nationally — the state's overall wildfire exposure is high enough to make this a relatively quiet corner of it. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Decatur ranks 12,544 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 12,845 by building count (1 is largest). Within Mississippi alone, it ranks 273 of 420 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Mississippi on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
At the 60th percentile nationally, Decatur carries the high rating that has pushed some carriers to limit new business in similarly-scored places elsewhere in the country. Worth comparing quotes rather than assuming last year's renewal terms still apply.
Hardening a home in Decatur
Because Direct exposure dominates in Decatur (78.8%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Decatur's 12,544-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Decatur, see the exposure-zones guide.