East Harwich, MA
How exposed is East Harwich to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, East Harwich lands at the 32nd percentile for wildfire risk to structures — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a figure built from its 3,650 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks East Harwich at the 21st national percentile — 10 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
East Harwich's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS classifies 57.4% of East Harwich's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 38% Direct and 4.6% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one.
East Harwich against the rest of the country
Compare East Harwich's two percentiles: 85th within Massachusetts, only 32nd nationally — a gap of 53 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, East Harwich ranks 21,527 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 4,587 by building count (1 is largest). Within Massachusetts alone, it ranks 39 of 248 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Massachusetts on its state page.
East Harwich and the insurance market
East Harwich's moderate rating (32nd 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
East Harwich's 57.4% 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 East Harwich's figures come from
East Harwich's 32nd-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 East Harwich's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.