Kure Beach, NC
Kure Beach, NC's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Kure Beach sits at the 78th 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 1,729 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 Kure Beach at the 67th percentile, lower than its 78th-percentile risk score, because so much is actually built here.
Where Kure Beach's buildings actually sit
Most of Kure Beach's buildings (97.8%) sit in the Indirect zone, where wind-blown embers rather than flame front are the mechanism USFS is scoring — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing are the interventions this pattern favors, more than defensible space alone.
Kure Beach against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Kure Beach's 78th national percentile and its 81st percentile inside North Carolina, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Kure Beach ranks 6,875 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 8,308 by building count (1 is largest). Within North Carolina alone, it ranks 148 of 772 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for North Carolina on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Kure Beach's 78th-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
Because 97.8% of Kure Beach'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 Kure Beach's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Kure Beach's 6,875-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Kure Beach's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.