Hampstead, NC
How exposed is Hampstead to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Hampstead at the 86th national percentile for risk to structures, in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a score built from 3,139 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Hampstead at the 84th national percentile — 2 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Hampstead's building exposure, zone by zone
3,139 buildings are counted in Hampstead, and 85.4% of them sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone — flame contact, not just ember cast, is the live possibility for most of them, against 0.8% rated Minimal.
Hampstead against the rest of the country
Hampstead scores 86th nationally and 94th within North Carolina — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Hampstead ranks 4,581 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 5,242 by building count (1 is largest). Within North Carolina alone, it ranks 48 of 772 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for North Carolina on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Hampstead
Hampstead's 86th-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.
What would actually reduce this score
With 85.4% of Hampstead 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
Every one of the two percentiles behind Hampstead's 4,581-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Hampstead, see the exposure-zones guide.