Laurel, VA
How exposed is Laurel to wildfire?
Laurel's 5,349 buildings earn a 27th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Laurel at the 28th national percentile — 1 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Laurel's building exposure, zone by zone
74.9% of Laurel's 5,349 buildings sit in USFS's Minimal exposure zone, with only 25.1% rated Direct — risk here comes from regional burn probability more than proximity to burnable vegetation at the structure itself. At 5,349 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Laurel compares
Laurel's risk sits at a similar level relative to Virginia (17th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (27th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Laurel ranks 23,080 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 3,224 by building count (1 is largest). Within Virginia alone, it ranks 565 of 681 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Virginia on its state page.
Laurel and the insurance market
Laurel's moderate wildfire rating (27th 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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Even with 74.9% of Laurel outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones, basic hardening — gutter maintenance, ember-resistant vents — is inexpensive relative to the regional burn-probability risk noted above. Details in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 5,349 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Laurel. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Laurel, see the exposure-zones guide.