Derby, CT
Derby wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Derby at the 31st national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range), a figure built from 4,097 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Derby at the 30th national percentile — 1 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Derby's buildings actually sit
USFS classifies 46.5% of Derby's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 13.2% Direct and 40.4% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one.
Where Derby ranks
Derby's 48th-percentile standing inside Connecticut outpaces its 31st national percentile — this is a hotter spot than most of its own state, even though the state as a whole runs cooler nationally. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Derby ranks 21,673 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 4,141 by building count (1 is largest). Within Connecticut alone, it ranks 111 of 214 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Connecticut on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Derby
Derby's moderate rating (31st percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Derby's 46.5% Minimal-exposure share means structure-level hardening matters less here than it would elsewhere — still worth the low-cost basics, per the home-hardening guide.
Where Derby's figures come from
Derby's 31st-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Derby's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.