Lowndesville, SC
How exposed is Lowndesville to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Lowndesville lands at the 67th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 158 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Lowndesville at the 70th percentile, close to its 67th-percentile risk score.
Where Lowndesville's buildings actually sit
Of Lowndesville's 158 counted buildings, 94.9% 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.
How Lowndesville compares
Lowndesville's 67th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 43rd ranking inside South Carolina does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 24 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Lowndesville ranks 10,476 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 26,547 by building count (1 is largest). Within South Carolina alone, it ranks 273 of 474 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for South Carolina on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Lowndesville's 67th-percentile, high rating is the kind of score behind a broader national pattern: insurers pulling back from the highest wildfire-risk markets, non-renewing or declining new policies outright, most visibly in California. Shopping around, not assuming automatic renewal, tends to matter here.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Because Direct exposure dominates in Lowndesville (94.9%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
Where Lowndesville's figures come from
Lowndesville's 67th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Lowndesville's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.