Heflin, AL
How exposed is Heflin to wildfire?
USFS scores Heflin at the 83rd national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally), a figure built from 1,936 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Heflin at the 86th national percentile — 3 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Heflin's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS classifies 81.3% of Heflin's buildings as Direct exposure, higher than its 18.8% Indirect share and far above its 0% Minimal share — a profile where 1,573 structures sit close enough to vegetation that lot clearing matters most.
Where Heflin ranks
There's little gap between Heflin's 83rd national percentile and its 83rd percentile inside Alabama, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Heflin ranks 5,407 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 7,655 by building count (1 is largest). Within Alabama alone, it ranks 98 of 592 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Alabama on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Heflin
Heflin's 83rd-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 81.3% of Heflin 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.
Where Heflin's figures come from
Heflin's 83rd-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Heflin's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.