Heath, AL
Heath, AL's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Out of every US place USFS scores, Heath lands at the 70th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 159 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Heath at the 72nd national percentile — 2 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Heath's buildings actually sit
Of Heath's 159 counted buildings, 99.4% carry Direct exposure and only 0% carry Minimal — a lopsided split that puts defensible-space clearing ahead of vents or roofing as the intervention worth doing first.
Where Heath ranks
Heath's 70th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 47th ranking inside Alabama does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 23 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Heath ranks 9,442 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 26,463 by building count (1 is largest). Within Alabama alone, it ranks 317 of 592 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Alabama on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Heath's 70th-percentile, 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 Heath
With 99.4% of Heath 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 Heath's 9,442-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Heath, see the exposure-zones guide.