Downsville, NY
Downsville, NY's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Out of every US place USFS scores, Downsville lands at the 13th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a figure built from its 498 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 Downsville at the 13th percentile, close to its 13th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Of Downsville's 498 counted buildings, 68.1% carry Direct exposure and only 0% carry Minimal — a lopsided split that puts defensible-space clearing ahead of vents or roofing as the intervention worth doing first.
Downsville against the rest of the country
Compare Downsville's two percentiles: 32nd within New York, only 13th nationally — a gap of 19 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Downsville ranks 27,301 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 17,393 by building count (1 is largest). Within New York alone, it ranks 866 of 1,289 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for New York on its state page.
Downsville and the insurance market
Downsville's low wildfire rating (13th 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.
What would actually reduce this score
Because Direct exposure dominates in Downsville (68.1%), 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
Downsville's 13th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Downsville, see the exposure-zones guide.