Fairview, AL
How exposed is Fairview to wildfire?
USFS scores Fairview at the 67th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (well above the national norm for wildfire risk), a figure built from 371 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Fairview at the 72nd national percentile — 5 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
86.5% of Fairview's 371 buildings sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone, roughly 321 structures close enough to burnable vegetation for flame contact, not just embers — 13.5% fall in the Indirect, ember-only zone and 0% are Minimal.
Where Fairview ranks
Inside Alabama, Fairview sits at just the 39th percentile even though it scores 67th nationally — the state's overall wildfire exposure is high enough to make this a relatively quiet corner of it. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Fairview ranks 10,514 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 19,829 by building count (1 is largest). Within Alabama alone, it ranks 365 of 592 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Alabama on its state page.
Fairview and the insurance market
Fairview's 67th-percentile, high rating is the kind of score behind a broader national pattern: insurers pulling back from the highest wildfire-risk markets, non-renewing or declining new policies outright, most visibly in California. Shopping around, not assuming automatic renewal, tends to matter here.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
With 86.5% of Fairview in Direct exposure, defensible-space clearing and ember-resistant construction (vents, Class-A roofing) address the exposure this page's own numbers describe, not a generic checklist. See the home-hardening guide.
Where Fairview's figures come from
Fairview's 67th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Fairview's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.