Hickory, KY
How exposed is Hickory to wildfire?
Hickory's 243 buildings earn a 22nd-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Hickory at the 22nd national percentile — 0 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Direct exposure dominates in Hickory: 61.3% of its 243 buildings, versus 0% Indirect and 38.7% Minimal. Clearing space around a structure changes the outcome here more than any single building-material swap.
How Hickory compares
Hickory's 38th-percentile standing inside Kentucky outpaces its 22nd national percentile — this is a hotter spot than most of its own state, even though the state as a whole runs cooler nationally. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Hickory ranks 24,705 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 23,362 by building count (1 is largest). Within Kentucky alone, it ranks 345 of 552 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Kentucky on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Hickory
Hickory's moderate wildfire rating (22nd percentile) isn't the kind of score driving the carrier pullback making news in the highest-risk Western markets — but a standard homeowners quote is still worth comparing on its own terms.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
With 61.3% of Hickory 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 Hickory's 24,705-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Hickory, see the exposure-zones guide.