Iron Gate, VA
Iron Gate, VA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Iron Gate sits at the 66th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 260 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Iron Gate at the 65th percentile, close to its 66th-percentile risk score.
Iron Gate's building exposure, zone by zone
Indirect exposure is dominant in Iron Gate (86.5% of 260 buildings): far enough from burnable vegetation to avoid flame contact, close enough for wind-blown embers. Only 13.5% sit in the Direct zone.
Iron Gate against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Iron Gate's 66th national percentile and its 77th percentile inside Virginia, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Iron Gate ranks 10,858 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 22,842 by building count (1 is largest). Within Virginia alone, it ranks 158 of 681 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Virginia on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Iron Gate
Iron Gate's 66th-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
Iron Gate's 86.5% 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.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 260 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Iron Gate. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Iron Gate, see the exposure-zones guide.