Lake Meade, PA
How exposed is Lake Meade to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Lake Meade at the 10th national percentile for risk to structures, among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a score built from 1,239 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Lake Meade at the 10th national percentile — 0 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Lake Meade's building exposure, zone by zone
Of Lake Meade's 1,239 counted buildings, 66.8% carry Direct exposure and only 3.2% carry Minimal — a lopsided split that puts defensible-space clearing ahead of vents or roofing as the intervention worth doing first.
Where Lake Meade ranks
Lake Meade's risk sits at a similar level relative to Pennsylvania (8th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (10th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Lake Meade ranks 28,505 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 10,416 by building count (1 is largest). Within Pennsylvania alone, it ranks 1,839 of 1,991 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Pennsylvania on its state page.
Lake Meade and the insurance market
At the 10th national percentile, Lake Meade rates low for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
What would actually reduce this score
Lake Meade's 66.8% Direct-exposure share means lot clearing around the structure typically outweighs any single material upgrade here. The home-hardening guide ranks the options for a place shaped like this.
Where Lake Meade's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Lake Meade's 28,505-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Lake Meade's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.