Madison, GA
Madison wildfire risk explained
Madison sits at the 65th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 2,405 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Madison at the 68th national percentile — 3 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Madison's building exposure, zone by zone
Of Madison's 2,405 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 Madison ranks
Inside Georgia, Madison sits at just the 43rd percentile even though it scores 65th nationally — the state's overall wildfire exposure is high enough to make this a relatively quiet corner of it. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Madison ranks 10,932 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 6,502 by building count (1 is largest). Within Georgia alone, it ranks 379 of 669 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Georgia on its state page.
Madison and the insurance market
Madison's 65th-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
Madison's 61.5% 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 Madison's figures come from
Madison's 65th-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 Madison's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.