Essex, MA
Essex, MA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS scores Essex at the 37th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range), a figure built from 792 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 at the 33rd percentile, close to its 37th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
53.2% of Essex's 792 buildings sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone, roughly 421 structures close enough to burnable vegetation for flame contact, not just embers — 46.8% fall in the Indirect, ember-only zone and 0% are Minimal.
How Essex compares
Within Massachusetts, Essex ranks higher (93rd percentile) than it does nationally (37th) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Essex ranks 19,883 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 13,709 by building count (1 is largest). Within Massachusetts alone, it ranks 18 of 248 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Massachusetts on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Essex
Essex's moderate wildfire rating (37th 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.
What would actually reduce this score
Essex's 53.2% Direct-exposure share means lot clearing around the structure typically outweighs any single material upgrade here. The home-hardening guide ranks the options for a place shaped like this.
More on how this number was built
Essex's 37th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Essex, see the exposure-zones guide.