Lake Placid, NY
How exposed is Lake Placid to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Lake Placid at the 19th national percentile for risk to structures, among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a score built from 1,346 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Lake Placid at the 20th national percentile — 1 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Lake Placid's buildings actually sit
69.5% of Lake Placid's 1,346 buildings fall in USFS's Indirect exposure zone — ember cast rather than direct flame — against 29.3% Direct and 1.2% Minimal. Vent screens and roofing material matter more here than lot clearing alone.
Lake Placid against the rest of the country
Compare Lake Placid's two percentiles: 43rd within New York, only 19th nationally — a gap of 24 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Lake Placid ranks 25,535 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 9,852 by building count (1 is largest). Within New York alone, it ranks 732 of 1,289 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for New York on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Lake Placid
At the 19th national percentile, Lake Placid rates low for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
Hardening a home in Lake Placid
Because 69.5% of Lake Placid'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 Lake Placid's figures come from
Lake Placid's 19th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Lake Placid's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.