Merritt Island, FL
Merritt Island, FL's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Merritt Island's 15,452 buildings earn a 92nd-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Merritt Island at the 90th national percentile — 2 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Merritt Island's building exposure, zone by zone
81.3% of Merritt Island's 15,452 buildings sit in USFS's Minimal exposure zone, with only 11% rated Direct — risk here comes from regional burn probability more than proximity to burnable vegetation at the structure itself. At 15,452 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Where Merritt Island ranks
There's little gap between Merritt Island's 92nd national percentile and its 85th percentile inside Florida, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Merritt Island ranks 2,609 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 955 by building count (1 is largest). Within Florida alone, it ranks 146 of 955 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Florida on its state page.
Merritt Island and the insurance market
At the 92nd percentile nationally, Merritt Island carries the very high rating that has pushed some carriers to limit new business in similarly-scored places elsewhere in the country. Worth comparing quotes rather than assuming last year's renewal terms still apply.
Hardening a home in Merritt Island
Merritt Island's 81.3% Minimal-exposure share means structure-level hardening matters less here than it would elsewhere — still worth the low-cost basics, per the home-hardening guide.
Where Merritt Island's figures come from
Merritt Island's 92nd-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 Merritt Island's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.