Melrose, MA
Melrose wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Melrose lands at the 27th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a figure built from its 9,257 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Melrose at the 23rd national percentile — 4 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Melrose's building exposure, zone by zone
Most of Melrose's buildings (98.4% of 9,257) fall outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones entirely — that doesn't zero out the score above, it means the risk is regional, not structure-by-structure. At 9,257 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Where Melrose ranks
Melrose's 56th-percentile standing inside Massachusetts outpaces its 27th national percentile — this is a hotter spot than most of its own state, even though the state as a whole runs cooler nationally. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Melrose ranks 23,102 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,781 by building count (1 is largest). Within Massachusetts alone, it ranks 110 of 248 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Massachusetts on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Melrose's moderate wildfire rating (27th percentile) isn't the kind of score driving the carrier pullback making news in the highest-risk Western markets — but a standard homeowners quote is still worth comparing on its own terms.
Hardening a home in Melrose
With 98.4% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Melrose gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 9,257 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Melrose. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Melrose, see the exposure-zones guide.