Lancaster, NY
How exposed is Lancaster to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Lancaster lands at the 30th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a figure built from its 5,227 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Lancaster at the 30th percentile, close to its 30th-percentile risk score.
Where Lancaster's buildings actually sit
Most of Lancaster's buildings (90.1% of 5,227) fall outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones entirely — that doesn't zero out the score above, it means the risk is regional, not structure-by-structure. At 5,227 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Lancaster compares
Compare Lancaster's two percentiles: 63rd within New York, only 30th nationally — a gap of 33 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Lancaster ranks 22,163 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 3,299 by building count (1 is largest). Within New York alone, it ranks 478 of 1,289 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for New York on its state page.
Lancaster and the insurance market
At the 30th national percentile, Lancaster rates moderate 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
With 90.1% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Lancaster gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
Where Lancaster's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 5,227 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Lancaster. The exposure-zones guide covers what Lancaster's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.