Emmitsburg, MD
How exposed is Emmitsburg to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Emmitsburg lands at the 24th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a figure built from its 811 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 Emmitsburg at the 23rd percentile, close to its 24th-percentile risk score.
Emmitsburg's building exposure, zone by zone
Most of Emmitsburg's buildings (70.2%) 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 Emmitsburg compares
Emmitsburg scores 24th nationally and 34th within Maryland — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Emmitsburg ranks 23,829 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 13,544 by building count (1 is largest). Within Maryland alone, it ranks 348 of 527 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Maryland on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Emmitsburg
Emmitsburg's moderate wildfire rating (24th 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 70.2% of Emmitsburg's buildings sit in the Indirect zone, sealing the ember pathway (vents, roofing, gutters) is the intervention this page's data actually supports — see the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Emmitsburg's 24th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Emmitsburg, see the exposure-zones guide.