Ghent, NY
How exposed is Ghent to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Ghent at the 30th national percentile for risk to structures, close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a score built from 411 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Ghent at the 28th national percentile — 2 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Direct exposure dominates in Ghent: 65.7% of its 411 buildings, versus 34.3% Indirect and 0% Minimal. Clearing space around a structure changes the outcome here more than any single building-material swap.
How Ghent compares
Compare Ghent's two percentiles: 64th within New York, only 30th nationally — a gap of 34 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Ghent ranks 22,094 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 19,013 by building count (1 is largest). Within New York alone, it ranks 468 of 1,289 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for New York on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
At the 30th national percentile, Ghent rates moderate for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
Hardening a home in Ghent
Ghent's 65.7% Direct-exposure share means lot clearing around the structure typically outweighs any single material upgrade here. The home-hardening guide ranks the options for a place shaped like this.
Where Ghent's figures come from
Ghent's 30th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Ghent's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.