Elk Park, NC
How exposed is Elk Park to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Elk Park at the 68th national percentile for risk to structures, well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a score built from 330 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Elk Park at the 71st percentile, close to its 68th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Of Elk Park's 330 counted buildings, 69.4% 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.
Elk Park against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Elk Park's 68th national percentile and its 68th percentile inside North Carolina, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Elk Park ranks 10,025 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 20,829 by building count (1 is largest). Within North Carolina alone, it ranks 249 of 772 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for North Carolina on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Elk Park's high rating (68th percentile) puts it among the places where the national carrier-pullback trend is most relevant — not a guarantee of a coverage problem, but a reason to shop rather than assume.
What would actually reduce this score
Because Direct exposure dominates in Elk Park (69.4%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
Where Elk Park's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Elk Park's 10,025-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Elk Park's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.