Highland Beach, MD
Highland Beach wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Highland Beach at the 28th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range), a figure built from 85 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Highland Beach at the 28th percentile, close to its 28th-percentile risk score.
Highland Beach's building exposure, zone by zone
Only 41.2% of Highland Beach's 85 buildings carry Direct exposure and 0% carry Indirect; the remaining 58.8% are Minimal, which shifts the risk driving this page's score toward the surrounding landscape rather than any one structure.
Highland Beach against the rest of the country
Highland Beach's risk sits at a similar level relative to Maryland (42nd percentile statewide) as it does nationally (28th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Highland Beach ranks 22,812 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 29,689 by building count (1 is largest). Within Maryland alone, it ranks 307 of 527 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Maryland on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Highland Beach
Highland Beach's moderate rating (28th percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
Hardening a home in Highland Beach
Highland Beach's 58.8% Minimal-exposure share means structure-level hardening matters less here than it would elsewhere — still worth the low-cost basics, per the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 85 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Highland Beach. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Highland Beach, see the exposure-zones guide.