Elm City, NC
How exposed is Elm City to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Elm City lands at the 45th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 763 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 Elm City at the 43rd percentile, close to its 45th-percentile risk score.
Where Elm City's buildings actually sit
Most of Elm City's buildings (55.6%) 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.
How Elm City compares
Elm City's 45th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 25th ranking inside North Carolina does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 20 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Elm City ranks 17,432 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 13,987 by building count (1 is largest). Within North Carolina alone, it ranks 583 of 772 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for North Carolina on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Elm City
Elm City's elevated wildfire rating (45th 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
Elm City's 55.6% 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.
Where Elm City's figures come from
Elm City's 45th-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 Elm City's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.