Goodwater, AL
Goodwater, AL's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Out of every US place USFS scores, Goodwater lands at the 90th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a figure built from its 770 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Goodwater's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 92nd percentile nationally.
Where Goodwater's buildings actually sit
Direct exposure dominates in Goodwater: 91.4% of its 770 buildings, versus 8.6% Indirect and 0% Minimal. Clearing space around a structure changes the outcome here more than any single building-material swap.
How Goodwater compares
There's little gap between Goodwater's 90th national percentile and its 97th percentile inside Alabama, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Goodwater ranks 3,296 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 13,913 by building count (1 is largest). Within Alabama alone, it ranks 19 of 592 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Alabama on its state page.
Goodwater and the insurance market
Goodwater's 90th-percentile, very 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 Goodwater
With 91.4% of Goodwater in Direct exposure, defensible-space clearing and ember-resistant construction (vents, Class-A roofing) address the exposure this page's own numbers describe, not a generic checklist. See the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Goodwater's 90th-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 Goodwater, see the exposure-zones guide.