Manahawkin, NJ
How exposed is Manahawkin to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Manahawkin at the 92nd national percentile for risk to structures, in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a score built from 1,186 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Manahawkin at the 90th percentile, close to its 92nd-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Indirect exposure is dominant in Manahawkin (84.6% of 1,186 buildings): far enough from burnable vegetation to avoid flame contact, close enough for wind-blown embers. Only 15.3% sit in the Direct zone.
Manahawkin against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Manahawkin's 92nd national percentile and its 98th percentile inside New Jersey, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Manahawkin ranks 2,424 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 10,733 by building count (1 is largest). Within New Jersey alone, it ranks 18 of 700 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for New Jersey on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Manahawkin's 92nd-percentile, very 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.
Hardening a home in Manahawkin
Because 84.6% of Manahawkin'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.
Where Manahawkin's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Manahawkin's 2,424-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Manahawkin's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.