Laurel, DE
How exposed is Laurel to wildfire?
Laurel's 1,379 buildings earn a 45th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Laurel's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 45th percentile nationally.
Laurel's building exposure, zone by zone
Only 21.3% of Laurel's 1,379 buildings carry Direct exposure and 0% carry Indirect; the remaining 78.7% are Minimal, which shifts the risk driving this page's score toward the surrounding landscape rather than any one structure.
Laurel against the rest of the country
Compare Laurel's two percentiles: 68th within Delaware, only 45th nationally — a gap of 23 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Laurel ranks 17,448 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 9,719 by building count (1 is largest). Within Delaware alone, it ranks 26 of 79 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Delaware on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Laurel's elevated wildfire rating (45th percentile) isn't the kind of score driving the carrier pullback making news in the highest-risk Western markets — but a standard homeowners quote is still worth comparing on its own terms.
What would actually reduce this score
With 78.7% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Laurel gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Laurel's 17,448-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Laurel, see the exposure-zones guide.