Monroe, NC
How exposed is Monroe to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Monroe lands at the 26th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a figure built from its 14,585 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Monroe at the 28th percentile, close to its 26th-percentile risk score.
Where Monroe's buildings actually sit
USFS classifies 50.9% of Monroe's buildings as Direct exposure, higher than its 39.5% Indirect share and far above its 9.6% Minimal share — a profile where 7,431 structures sit close enough to vegetation that lot clearing matters most. At 14,585 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Monroe against the rest of the country
Monroe's 26th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 1st ranking inside North Carolina does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 25 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Monroe ranks 23,299 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,024 by building count (1 is largest). Within North Carolina alone, it ranks 765 of 772 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for North Carolina on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Monroe
Monroe's moderate wildfire rating (26th 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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Monroe's 50.9% 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
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 14,585 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Monroe. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Monroe, see the exposure-zones guide.