Lake City, SC
Lake City wildfire risk explained
Lake City's 3,474 buildings earn a 81st-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Lake City at the 81st national percentile — 0 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Lake City's building exposure, zone by zone
Most of Lake City's buildings (68.2%) 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.
Lake City against the rest of the country
Lake City scores 81st nationally and 88th within South Carolina — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Lake City ranks 5,904 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 4,803 by building count (1 is largest). Within South Carolina alone, it ranks 60 of 474 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for South Carolina on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Lake City's 81st-percentile, very 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
Lake City's 68.2% 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.
Where Lake City's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 3,474 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Lake City. The exposure-zones guide covers what Lake City's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.