Fries, VA
Fries wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Fries at the 66th national percentile for risk to structures, well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a score built from 381 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Fries at the 69th national percentile — 3 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
USFS puts 66.9% of Fries's 381 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 32.8% Direct and 0.3% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
How Fries compares
Fries's risk sits at a similar level relative to Virginia (77th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (66th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Fries ranks 10,795 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 19,635 by building count (1 is largest). Within Virginia alone, it ranks 155 of 681 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Virginia on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
At the 66th percentile nationally, Fries carries the high rating that has pushed some carriers to limit new business in similarly-scored places elsewhere in the country. Worth comparing quotes rather than assuming last year's renewal terms still apply.
What would actually reduce this score
Because 66.9% of Fries'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
Every one of the two percentiles behind Fries's 10,795-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Fries, see the exposure-zones guide.