Gaithersburg, MD
Gaithersburg, MD's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Gaithersburg at the 12th national percentile for risk to structures, among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a score built from 11,118 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Gaithersburg's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 11th percentile nationally.
Gaithersburg's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS classifies 83.1% of Gaithersburg's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 12.9% Direct and 4% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one. At 11,118 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Where Gaithersburg ranks
There's little gap between Gaithersburg's 12th national percentile and its 8th percentile inside Maryland, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Gaithersburg ranks 27,801 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,427 by building count (1 is largest). Within Maryland alone, it ranks 486 of 527 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Maryland on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Gaithersburg
Gaithersburg's low wildfire rating (12th 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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Gaithersburg's 83.1% Minimal-exposure share means structure-level hardening matters less here than it would elsewhere — still worth the low-cost basics, per the home-hardening guide.
Where Gaithersburg's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Gaithersburg's 27,801-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Gaithersburg's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.