Mont Alto, PA
How exposed is Mont Alto to wildfire?
USFS scores Mont Alto at the 59th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (modestly above the national average for wildfire risk), a figure built from 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 Mont Alto at the 55th percentile, close to its 59th-percentile risk score.
Where Mont Alto's buildings actually sit
USFS puts 81.1% of Mont Alto's 689 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 18.9% Direct and 0% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
Mont Alto against the rest of the country
Compare Mont Alto's two percentiles: 95th within Pennsylvania, only 59th nationally — a gap of 36 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Mont Alto ranks 13,093 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 14,773 by building count (1 is largest). Within Pennsylvania alone, it ranks 106 of 1,991 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Pennsylvania on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Mont Alto
Mont Alto's elevated wildfire rating (59th 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
Mont Alto's 81.1% Indirect-exposure share points at embers, not flame contact, as the main pathway — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing rank ahead of defensible space here. Detail in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 689 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Mont Alto. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Mont Alto, see the exposure-zones guide.