Gaston, SC
How exposed is Gaston to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Gaston at the 68th national percentile for risk to structures, well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a score built from 1,089 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Gaston at the 67th percentile, close to its 68th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
1,089 buildings are counted in Gaston, and 84.2% of them sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone — flame contact, not just ember cast, is the live possibility for most of them, against 0% rated Minimal.
How Gaston compares
Inside South Carolina, Gaston sits at just the 51st percentile even though it scores 68th nationally — the state's overall wildfire exposure is high enough to make this a relatively quiet corner of it. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Gaston ranks 10,003 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 11,347 by building count (1 is largest). Within South Carolina alone, it ranks 234 of 474 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for South Carolina on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Gaston
Gaston's high rating (68th 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.
Hardening a home in Gaston
Because Direct exposure dominates in Gaston (84.2%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Gaston's 68th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Gaston, see the exposure-zones guide.