Merrydale, LA
How exposed is Merrydale to wildfire?
USFS scores Merrydale at the 17th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally), a figure built from 3,890 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 Merrydale at the 18th percentile, close to its 17th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
3,890 buildings are counted in Merrydale, and 61.1% of them are Indirect exposure — ember-driven risk rather than the 24.5% in Direct exposure or the 14.5% rated Minimal.
Where Merrydale ranks
There's little gap between Merrydale's 17th national percentile and its 14th percentile inside Louisiana, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Merrydale ranks 26,185 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 4,347 by building count (1 is largest). Within Louisiana alone, it ranks 418 of 488 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Louisiana on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Merrydale'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.
Hardening a home in Merrydale
Because 61.1% of Merrydale'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.
More on how this number was built
Merrydale's 17th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Merrydale, see the exposure-zones guide.