Houghton, NY
Houghton wildfire risk explained
Houghton's 338 buildings earn a 15th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Houghton at the 16th 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
338 buildings are counted in Houghton, and 79.6% of them sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone — flame contact, not just ember cast, is the live possibility for most of them, against 0% rated Minimal.
Houghton against the rest of the country
Compare Houghton's two percentiles: 35th within New York, only 15th nationally — a gap of 20 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Houghton ranks 26,860 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 20,637 by building count (1 is largest). Within New York alone, it ranks 840 of 1,289 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for New York on its state page.
Houghton and the insurance market
Houghton's low wildfire rating (15th 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.
What would actually reduce this score
Houghton's 79.6% Direct-exposure share means lot clearing around the structure typically outweighs any single material upgrade here. The home-hardening guide ranks the options for a place shaped like this.
More on how this number was built
Houghton's 15th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Houghton, see the exposure-zones guide.