Gayle Mill, SC
How exposed is Gayle Mill to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Gayle Mill lands at the 62nd percentile for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 434 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Gayle Mill at the 65th 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
434 buildings are counted in Gayle Mill, and 86.4% of them are Indirect exposure — ember-driven risk rather than the 13.6% in Direct exposure or the 0% rated Minimal.
How Gayle Mill compares
Gayle Mill's 62nd national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 25th ranking inside South Carolina does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 37 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Gayle Mill ranks 11,985 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 18,573 by building count (1 is largest). Within South Carolina alone, it ranks 354 of 474 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for South Carolina on its state page.
Gayle Mill and the insurance market
Gayle Mill's 62nd-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.
What would actually reduce this score
Gayle Mill's 86.4% Indirect-exposure share points at embers, not flame contact, as the main pathway — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing rank ahead of defensible space here. Detail in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 434 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Gayle Mill. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Gayle Mill, see the exposure-zones guide.