Marlborough, NH
How exposed is Marlborough to wildfire?
USFS scores Marlborough at the 17th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally), a figure built from 548 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 Marlborough at the 17th percentile, close to its 17th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
66.2% of Marlborough's 548 buildings sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone, roughly 363 structures close enough to burnable vegetation for flame contact, not just embers — 33.8% fall in the Indirect, ember-only zone and 0% are Minimal.
Where Marlborough ranks
Compare Marlborough's two percentiles: 43rd within New Hampshire, only 17th nationally — a gap of 27 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Marlborough ranks 26,191 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 16,603 by building count (1 is largest). Within New Hampshire alone, it ranks 57 of 100 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for New Hampshire on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Marlborough's low rating (17th percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Marlborough's 66.2% 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.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Marlborough's 26,191-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Marlborough, see the exposure-zones guide.