Graham, NC
How exposed is Graham to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Graham at the 46th national percentile for risk to structures, modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — a score built from 6,742 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Graham at the 49th national percentile — 3 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Graham's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS classifies 42.5% of Graham's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 37.1% Direct and 20.4% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one. At 6,742 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Graham against the rest of the country
Inside North Carolina, Graham sits at just the 28th percentile even though it scores 46th 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, Graham ranks 17,089 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 2,568 by building count (1 is largest). Within North Carolina alone, it ranks 555 of 772 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for North Carolina on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Graham
At the 46th national percentile, Graham rates elevated for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Even with 42.5% of Graham outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones, basic hardening — gutter maintenance, ember-resistant vents — is inexpensive relative to the regional burn-probability risk noted above. Details in the home-hardening guide.
Where Graham's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 6,742 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Graham. The exposure-zones guide covers what Graham's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.