Devens, MA
How exposed is Devens to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Devens lands at the 44th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 563 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Devens at the 39th percentile, close to its 44th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Most of Devens's buildings (65.4%) sit in the Indirect zone, where wind-blown embers rather than flame front are the mechanism USFS is scoring — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing are the interventions this pattern favors, more than defensible space alone.
Where Devens ranks
Compare Devens's two percentiles: 98th within Massachusetts, only 44th nationally — a gap of 54 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Devens ranks 17,777 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 16,360 by building count (1 is largest). Within Massachusetts alone, it ranks 7 of 248 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Massachusetts on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Devens
Devens's elevated wildfire rating (44th 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 Devens
Devens's 65.4% Indirect-exposure share points at embers, not flame contact, as the main pathway — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing rank ahead of defensible space here. Detail in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 563 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Devens. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Devens, see the exposure-zones guide.