Jackson, LA
Jackson wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Jackson at the 68th national percentile for risk to structures, well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a score built from 1,140 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Jackson at the 70th percentile, close to its 68th-percentile risk score.
Where Jackson's buildings actually sit
Of Jackson's 1,140 counted buildings, 71.5% carry Direct exposure and only 0% carry Minimal — a lopsided split that puts defensible-space clearing ahead of vents or roofing as the intervention worth doing first.
How Jackson compares
Jackson's 84th-percentile standing inside Louisiana outpaces its 68th national percentile — this is a hotter spot than most of its own state, even though the state as a whole runs cooler nationally. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Jackson ranks 10,113 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 11,015 by building count (1 is largest). Within Louisiana alone, it ranks 80 of 488 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Louisiana on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Jackson
Jackson's 68th-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.
What would actually reduce this score
Because Direct exposure dominates in Jackson (71.5%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
Where Jackson's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 1,140 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Jackson. The exposure-zones guide covers what Jackson's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.