Garretts Mill, MD
Garretts Mill wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Garretts Mill at the 65th national percentile for risk to structures, well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a score built from 176 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Garretts Mill's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 64th percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Of Garretts Mill's 176 counted buildings, 97.2% carry Direct exposure and only 0% carry Minimal — a lopsided split that puts defensible-space clearing ahead of vents or roofing as the intervention worth doing first.
Garretts Mill against the rest of the country
Garretts Mill's 90th-percentile standing inside Maryland outpaces its 65th national percentile — this is a hotter spot than most of its own state, even though the state as a whole runs cooler nationally. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Garretts Mill ranks 10,967 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 25,780 by building count (1 is largest). Within Maryland alone, it ranks 53 of 527 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Maryland on its state page.
Garretts Mill and the insurance market
Garretts Mill's 65th-percentile, high rating is the kind of score behind a broader national pattern: insurers pulling back from the highest wildfire-risk markets, non-renewing or declining new policies outright, most visibly in California. Shopping around, not assuming automatic renewal, tends to matter here.
Hardening a home in Garretts Mill
Because Direct exposure dominates in Garretts Mill (97.2%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
Where Garretts Mill's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 176 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Garretts Mill. The exposure-zones guide covers what Garretts Mill's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.