Independence, OH
Independence wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Independence at the 30th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range), a figure built from 4,006 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Independence at the 30th national percentile — 1 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Independence's building exposure, zone by zone
Of Independence's 4,006 counted buildings, 49.2% carry Direct exposure and only 36.5% carry Minimal — a lopsided split that puts defensible-space clearing ahead of vents or roofing as the intervention worth doing first.
How Independence compares
Compare Independence's two percentiles: 64th within Ohio, only 30th nationally — a gap of 35 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Independence ranks 22,228 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 4,239 by building count (1 is largest). Within Ohio alone, it ranks 456 of 1,264 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Ohio on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Independence's moderate rating (30th percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Because Direct exposure dominates in Independence (49.2%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Independence's 22,228-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Independence, see the exposure-zones guide.