Edisto Beach, SC
Edisto Beach wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Edisto Beach lands at the 84th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a figure built from its 1,739 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 Edisto Beach at the 75th percentile, close to its 84th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Most of Edisto Beach's buildings (79.4%) 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 Edisto Beach ranks
Edisto Beach's risk sits at a similar level relative to South Carolina (92nd percentile statewide) as it does nationally (84th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Edisto Beach ranks 5,024 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 8,269 by building count (1 is largest). Within South Carolina alone, it ranks 39 of 474 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for South Carolina on its state page.
Edisto Beach and the insurance market
Edisto Beach's 84th-percentile, very high rating is the kind of score behind a broader national pattern: insurers pulling back from the highest wildfire-risk markets, non-renewing or declining new policies outright, most visibly in California. Shopping around, not assuming automatic renewal, tends to matter here.
What would actually reduce this score
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Edisto Beach (79.4% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 1,739 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Edisto Beach. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Edisto Beach, see the exposure-zones guide.