Houtzdale, PA
Houtzdale wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Houtzdale at the 54th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (modestly above the national average for wildfire risk), a figure built from 493 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Houtzdale at the 53rd national percentile — 1 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Houtzdale's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS puts 91.9% of Houtzdale's 493 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 8.1% Direct and 0% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
How Houtzdale compares
Within Pennsylvania, Houtzdale ranks higher (89th percentile) than it does nationally (54th) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Houtzdale ranks 14,509 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 17,483 by building count (1 is largest). Within Pennsylvania alone, it ranks 211 of 1,991 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Pennsylvania on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Houtzdale
Houtzdale's elevated wildfire rating (54th 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 Houtzdale
Because 91.9% of Houtzdale's buildings sit in the Indirect zone, sealing the ember pathway (vents, roofing, gutters) is the intervention this page's data actually supports — see the home-hardening guide.
Where Houtzdale's figures come from
Houtzdale's 54th-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 Houtzdale's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.