Leonardtown, MD
Leonardtown wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Leonardtown lands at the 60th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 1,394 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Leonardtown's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 61st percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
USFS puts 63.7% of Leonardtown's 1,394 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 36.1% Direct and 0.2% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
Where Leonardtown ranks
Leonardtown's 86th-percentile standing inside Maryland outpaces its 60th national percentile — this is a hotter spot than most of its own state, even though the state as a whole runs cooler nationally. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Leonardtown ranks 12,605 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 9,658 by building count (1 is largest). Within Maryland alone, it ranks 75 of 527 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Maryland on its state page.
Leonardtown and the insurance market
Leonardtown's elevated wildfire rating (60th 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.
Hardening a home in Leonardtown
Because 63.7% of Leonardtown'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.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Leonardtown's 12,605-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Leonardtown, see the exposure-zones guide.