Hilltop, SC
Hilltop wildfire risk explained
Hilltop sits at the 51st percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 1,577 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Hilltop's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 54th percentile nationally.
Where Hilltop's buildings actually sit
Only 15.8% of Hilltop's 1,577 buildings carry Direct exposure and 0% carry Indirect; the remaining 84.2% are Minimal, which shifts the risk driving this page's score toward the surrounding landscape rather than any one structure.
How Hilltop compares
Hilltop's 51st national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 3rd ranking inside South Carolina does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 48 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Hilltop ranks 15,551 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 8,850 by building count (1 is largest). Within South Carolina alone, it ranks 459 of 474 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for South Carolina on its state page.
Hilltop and the insurance market
Hilltop's elevated wildfire rating (51st 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
Even with 84.2% of Hilltop outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones, basic hardening — gutter maintenance, ember-resistant vents — is inexpensive relative to the regional burn-probability risk noted above. Details in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Hilltop's 51st-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Hilltop, see the exposure-zones guide.