Ephrata, PA
How exposed is Ephrata to wildfire?
Ephrata sits at the 4th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 4,442 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Ephrata at the 4th national percentile — 0 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Ephrata's buildings actually sit
USFS classifies 89.1% of Ephrata's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 10.9% Direct and 0% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one.
Ephrata against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Ephrata's 4th national percentile and its 1st percentile inside Pennsylvania, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Ephrata ranks 30,370 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 3,843 by building count (1 is largest). Within Pennsylvania alone, it ranks 1,966 of 1,991 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Pennsylvania on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Ephrata
Ephrata's low wildfire rating (4th 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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Even with 89.1% of Ephrata outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones, basic hardening — gutter maintenance, ember-resistant vents — is inexpensive relative to the regional burn-probability risk noted above. Details in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 4,442 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Ephrata. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Ephrata, see the exposure-zones guide.