Essex Junction, VT
How exposed is Essex Junction to wildfire?
USFS scores Essex Junction at the 8th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally), a figure built from 3,394 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Essex Junction at the 8th percentile, close to its 8th-percentile risk score.
Where Essex Junction's buildings actually sit
Essex Junction rates 58.4% Minimal exposure against just 17.8% Direct and 23.8% Indirect — of 3,394 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually.
Where Essex Junction ranks
Essex Junction's risk sits at a similar level relative to Vermont (2nd percentile statewide) as it does nationally (8th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Essex Junction ranks 28,982 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 4,926 by building count (1 is largest). Within Vermont alone, it ranks 175 of 179 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Vermont on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
At the 8th national percentile, Essex Junction rates low for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
What would actually reduce this score
Essex Junction's 58.4% Minimal-exposure share means structure-level hardening matters less here than it would elsewhere — still worth the low-cost basics, per the home-hardening guide.
Where Essex Junction's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Essex Junction's 28,982-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Essex Junction's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.