Holden Beach, NC
How exposed is Holden Beach to wildfire?
Holden Beach's 2,276 buildings earn a 79th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — well above the national norm for wildfire risk. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Holden Beach at the 75th national percentile — 5 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Holden Beach's building exposure, zone by zone
Most of Holden Beach's buildings (46.4%) sit in the Indirect zone, where wind-blown embers rather than flame front are the mechanism USFS is scoring — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing are the interventions this pattern favors, more than defensible space alone.
How Holden Beach compares
Holden Beach scores 79th nationally and 84th within North Carolina — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Holden Beach ranks 6,528 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 6,759 by building count (1 is largest). Within North Carolina alone, it ranks 123 of 772 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for North Carolina on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Holden Beach's 79th-percentile, 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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Holden Beach's 46.4% Indirect-exposure share points at embers, not flame contact, as the main pathway — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing rank ahead of defensible space here. Detail in the home-hardening guide.
Where Holden Beach's figures come from
Holden Beach's 79th-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 Holden Beach's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.