Fort Gay, WV
Fort Gay, WV's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS scores Fort Gay at the 73rd national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (well above the national norm for wildfire risk), a figure built from 455 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 Fort Gay at the 77th percentile, close to its 73rd-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
67.9% of Fort Gay's 455 buildings fall in USFS's Indirect exposure zone — ember cast rather than direct flame — against 32.1% Direct and 0% Minimal. Vent screens and roofing material matter more here than lot clearing alone.
Where Fort Gay ranks
Fort Gay scores 73rd nationally and 68th within West 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, Fort Gay ranks 8,432 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 18,184 by building count (1 is largest). Within West Virginia alone, it ranks 140 of 429 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for West Virginia on its state page.
Fort Gay and the insurance market
Fort Gay's 73rd-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.
Hardening a home in Fort Gay
Fort Gay's 67.9% 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 Fort Gay's figures come from
Fort Gay's 73rd-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 Fort Gay's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.