Mount Carbon, WV
How exposed is Mount Carbon to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Mount Carbon lands at the 91st percentile for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a figure built from its 202 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 Mount Carbon at the 92nd percentile, close to its 91st-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Most of Mount Carbon's buildings (89.6%) sit in the Indirect zone, where wind-blown embers rather than flame front are the mechanism USFS is scoring — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing are the interventions this pattern favors, more than defensible space alone.
Mount Carbon against the rest of the country
Mount Carbon 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, Mount Carbon ranks 2,822 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 24,787 by building count (1 is largest). Within West Virginia alone, it ranks 69 of 429 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for West Virginia on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Mount Carbon
Mount Carbon's very high rating (91st percentile) puts it among the places where the national carrier-pullback trend is most relevant — not a guarantee of a coverage problem, but a reason to shop rather than assume.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Mount Carbon (89.6% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
Where Mount Carbon's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 202 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Mount Carbon. The exposure-zones guide covers what Mount Carbon's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.