Erwin, NC
How exposed is Erwin to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Erwin lands at the 57th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 2,788 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 Erwin at the 58th percentile, close to its 57th-percentile risk score.
Where Erwin's buildings actually sit
USFS puts 65.9% of Erwin's 2,788 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 34.1% Direct and 0% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
How Erwin compares
There's little gap between Erwin's 57th national percentile and its 56th 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, Erwin ranks 13,402 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 5,788 by building count (1 is largest). Within North Carolina alone, it ranks 342 of 772 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for North Carolina on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Erwin
Erwin's elevated rating (57th percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
What would actually reduce this score
Erwin's 65.9% 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.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Erwin's 13,402-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Erwin, see the exposure-zones guide.