Linden, NC
How exposed is Linden to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Linden lands at the 76th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 143 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Linden at the 76th national percentile — 0 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Linden's building exposure, zone by zone
Of Linden's 143 counted buildings, 61.5% carry Direct exposure and only 0% carry Minimal — a lopsided split that puts defensible-space clearing ahead of vents or roofing as the intervention worth doing first.
Where Linden ranks
There's little gap between Linden's 76th national percentile and its 78th percentile inside North Carolina, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Linden ranks 7,692 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 27,171 by building count (1 is largest). Within North Carolina alone, it ranks 171 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
Linden's high rating (76th percentile) puts it among the places where the national carrier-pullback trend is most relevant — not a guarantee of a coverage problem, but a reason to shop rather than assume.
What would actually reduce this score
With 61.5% of Linden in Direct exposure, defensible-space clearing and ember-resistant construction (vents, Class-A roofing) address the exposure this page's own numbers describe, not a generic checklist. See the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Linden's 7,692-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Linden, see the exposure-zones guide.