Gold Key Lake, PA
Gold Key Lake wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Gold Key Lake at the 58th national percentile for risk to structures, modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — a score built from 912 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 Gold Key Lake at the 56th percentile, close to its 58th-percentile risk score.
Gold Key Lake's building exposure, zone by zone
912 buildings are counted in Gold Key Lake, and 100% 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.
Where Gold Key Lake ranks
Within Pennsylvania, Gold Key Lake ranks higher (94th percentile) than it does nationally (58th) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Gold Key Lake ranks 13,276 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 12,622 by building count (1 is largest). Within Pennsylvania alone, it ranks 111 of 1,991 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Pennsylvania on its state page.
Gold Key Lake and the insurance market
Gold Key Lake's elevated rating (58th percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
What would actually reduce this score
Gold Key Lake's 100% 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 Gold Key Lake's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Gold Key Lake's 13,276-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Gold Key Lake's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.