Franklin, WV
How exposed is Franklin to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Franklin at the 72nd national percentile for risk to structures, well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a score built from 530 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Franklin at the 70th national percentile — 3 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Franklin's buildings actually sit
Most of Franklin's buildings (64%) sit in the Indirect zone, where wind-blown embers rather than flame front are the mechanism USFS is scoring — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing are the interventions this pattern favors, more than defensible space alone.
Franklin against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Franklin's 72nd national percentile and its 66th percentile inside West Virginia, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Franklin ranks 8,714 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 16,873 by building count (1 is largest). Within West Virginia alone, it ranks 145 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
Franklin's high rating (72nd percentile) puts it among the places where the national carrier-pullback trend is most relevant — not a guarantee of a coverage problem, but a reason to shop rather than assume.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Because 64% of Franklin's buildings sit in the Indirect zone, sealing the ember pathway (vents, roofing, gutters) is the intervention this page's data actually supports — see the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 530 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Franklin. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Franklin, see the exposure-zones guide.