Fairfax, VA
Fairfax wildfire risk explained
Fairfax's 7,852 buildings earn a 18th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Fairfax at the 19th national percentile — 1 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Fairfax's buildings actually sit
Only 31.1% of Fairfax's 7,852 buildings carry Direct exposure and 7.4% carry Indirect; the remaining 61.5% are Minimal, which shifts the risk driving this page's score toward the surrounding landscape rather than any one structure. At 7,852 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Fairfax compares
Fairfax scores 18th nationally and 9th within Virginia — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Fairfax ranks 25,765 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 2,164 by building count (1 is largest). Within Virginia alone, it ranks 617 of 681 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Virginia on its state page.
Fairfax and the insurance market
Fairfax's low wildfire rating (18th 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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
With 61.5% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Fairfax gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
Where Fairfax's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Fairfax's 25,765-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Fairfax's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.