Follansbee, WV
Follansbee wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Follansbee lands at the 32nd percentile for wildfire risk to structures — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a figure built from its 1,540 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Follansbee at the 33rd percentile, close to its 32nd-percentile risk score.
Where Follansbee's buildings actually sit
90.8% of Follansbee's 1,540 buildings fall in USFS's Indirect exposure zone — ember cast rather than direct flame — against 9.1% Direct and 0.1% Minimal. Vent screens and roofing material matter more here than lot clearing alone.
Where Follansbee ranks
Inside West Virginia, Follansbee sits at just the 2nd percentile even though it scores 32nd 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, Follansbee ranks 21,383 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 8,984 by building count (1 is largest). Within West Virginia alone, it ranks 421 of 429 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for West Virginia on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Follansbee's moderate rating (32nd percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
What would actually reduce this score
Follansbee's 90.8% 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.
Where Follansbee's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Follansbee's 21,383-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Follansbee's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.