Montgomery, WV
Montgomery wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Montgomery lands at the 91st percentile for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a figure built from its 595 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 Montgomery at the 92nd percentile, close to its 91st-percentile risk score.
Montgomery's building exposure, zone by zone
Indirect exposure is dominant in Montgomery (88.6% of 595 buildings): far enough from burnable vegetation to avoid flame contact, close enough for wind-blown embers. Only 8.4% sit in the Direct zone.
Where Montgomery ranks
Montgomery scores 91st nationally and 84th within West Virginia — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Montgomery ranks 2,884 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 15,902 by building count (1 is largest). Within West Virginia alone, it ranks 70 of 429 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for West Virginia on its state page.
Montgomery and the insurance market
Montgomery's 91st-percentile, very high rating is the kind of score behind a broader national pattern: insurers pulling back from the highest wildfire-risk markets, non-renewing or declining new policies outright, most visibly in California. Shopping around, not assuming automatic renewal, tends to matter here.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Montgomery's 88.6% 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.
Where Montgomery's figures come from
Montgomery's 91st-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 Montgomery's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.