High Falls, NY
High Falls wildfire risk explained
USFS scores High Falls at the 48th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (modestly above the national average for wildfire risk), a figure built from 382 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks High Falls at the 49th national percentile — 1 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
Of High Falls's 382 counted buildings, 87.7% 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.
How High Falls compares
Within New York, High Falls ranks higher (92nd percentile) than it does nationally (48th) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, High Falls ranks 16,461 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 19,600 by building count (1 is largest). Within New York alone, it ranks 104 of 1,289 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for New York on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
High Falls's elevated wildfire rating (48th 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.
Hardening a home in High Falls
Because Direct exposure dominates in High Falls (87.7%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind High Falls's 16,461-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond High Falls, see the exposure-zones guide.