Erwin, TN
Erwin wildfire risk explained
Erwin's 3,547 buildings earn a 77th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — well above the national norm for wildfire risk. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Erwin at the 79th national percentile — 2 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Erwin's buildings actually sit
USFS puts 70.7% of Erwin's 3,547 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 29.3% 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 77th national percentile and its 81st percentile inside Tennessee, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Erwin ranks 7,195 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 4,722 by building count (1 is largest). Within Tennessee alone, it ranks 98 of 502 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Tennessee on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Erwin's high rating (77th percentile) puts it among the places where the national carrier-pullback trend is most relevant — not a guarantee of a coverage problem, but a reason to shop rather than assume.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Erwin's 70.7% 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 7,195-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.