Franklin Town, MA
Franklin Town wildfire risk explained
Franklin Town sits at the 24th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 10,695 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Franklin Town's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 20th percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Indirect exposure is dominant in Franklin Town (40.3% of 10,695 buildings): far enough from burnable vegetation to avoid flame contact, close enough for wind-blown embers. Only 38.6% sit in the Direct zone. At 10,695 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Franklin Town compares
There's little gap between Franklin Town's 24th national percentile and its 38th percentile inside Massachusetts, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Franklin Town ranks 24,048 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,485 by building count (1 is largest). Within Massachusetts alone, it ranks 154 of 248 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Massachusetts on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Franklin Town
At the 24th national percentile, Franklin Town rates moderate for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
What would actually reduce this score
Franklin Town's 40.3% 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.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Franklin Town's 24,048-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Franklin Town, see the exposure-zones guide.