Erie, PA
Erie, PA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Erie sits at the 31st percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 39,043 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Erie's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 29th percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Most of Erie's buildings (98.1% of 39,043) fall outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones entirely — that doesn't zero out the score above, it means the risk is regional, not structure-by-structure. At 39,043 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Erie compares
Erie's risk sits at a similar level relative to Pennsylvania (41st percentile statewide) as it does nationally (31st) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Erie ranks 21,755 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 254 by building count (1 is largest). Within Pennsylvania alone, it ranks 1,184 of 1,991 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Pennsylvania on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
At the 31st national percentile, Erie rates moderate for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Even with 98.1% of Erie 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
Erie's 31st-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Erie, see the exposure-zones guide.