Fort Lee, NJ
How exposed is Fort Lee to wildfire?
USFS scores Fort Lee at the 17th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally), a figure built from 4,843 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Fort Lee at the 18th national percentile — 0 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
49.6% of Fort Lee's 4,843 buildings sit in USFS's Minimal exposure zone, with only 1.2% rated Direct — risk here comes from regional burn probability more than proximity to burnable vegetation at the structure itself.
Fort Lee against the rest of the country
Fort Lee scores 17th nationally and 3rd within New Jersey — 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 Lee ranks 26,101 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 3,529 by building count (1 is largest). Within New Jersey alone, it ranks 682 of 700 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for New Jersey on its state page.
Fort Lee and the insurance market
Fort Lee's low wildfire rating (17th 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
With 49.6% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Fort Lee gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
Where Fort Lee's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Fort Lee's 26,101-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Fort Lee's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.