Light Oak, NC
How exposed is Light Oak to wildfire?
USFS scores Light Oak at the 53rd national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (modestly above the national average for wildfire risk), a figure built from 499 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Light Oak at the 58th percentile, close to its 53rd-percentile risk score.
Where Light Oak's buildings actually sit
Direct exposure dominates in Light Oak: 82% of its 499 buildings, versus 0.2% Indirect and 17.8% Minimal. Clearing space around a structure changes the outcome here more than any single building-material swap.
How Light Oak compares
Light Oak's risk sits at a similar level relative to North Carolina (48th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (53rd) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Light Oak ranks 14,696 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 17,381 by building count (1 is largest). Within North Carolina alone, it ranks 406 of 772 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for North Carolina on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Light Oak's elevated wildfire rating (53rd 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
Light Oak's 82% Direct-exposure share means lot clearing around the structure typically outweighs any single material upgrade here. The home-hardening guide ranks the options for a place shaped like this.
Where Light Oak's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Light Oak's 14,696-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Light Oak's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.