Marlow Heights, MD
How exposed is Marlow Heights to wildfire?
USFS scores Marlow Heights at the 28th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range), a figure built from 1,689 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 Marlow Heights at the 28th percentile, close to its 28th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Only 24.9% of Marlow Heights's 1,689 buildings carry Direct exposure and 0% carry Indirect; the remaining 75.1% are Minimal, which shifts the risk driving this page's score toward the surrounding landscape rather than any one structure.
Marlow Heights against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Marlow Heights's 28th national percentile and its 41st percentile inside Maryland, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Marlow Heights ranks 22,814 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 8,459 by building count (1 is largest). Within Maryland alone, it ranks 309 of 527 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Maryland on its state page.
Marlow Heights and the insurance market
At the 28th national percentile, Marlow Heights rates moderate for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
What would actually reduce this score
With 75.1% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Marlow Heights gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
Where Marlow Heights's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 1,689 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Marlow Heights. The exposure-zones guide covers what Marlow Heights's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.