Mount Carmel, PA
Mount Carmel, PA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Mount Carmel sits at the 61st percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 1,414 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Mount Carmel at the 59th national percentile — 2 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
1,414 buildings are counted in Mount Carmel, and 98.2% of them are Indirect exposure — ember-driven risk rather than the 1.8% in Direct exposure or the 0% rated Minimal.
Where Mount Carmel ranks
Compare Mount Carmel's two percentiles: 97th within Pennsylvania, only 61st nationally — a gap of 36 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Mount Carmel ranks 12,176 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 9,568 by building count (1 is largest). Within Pennsylvania alone, it ranks 59 of 1,991 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Pennsylvania on its state page.
Mount Carmel and the insurance market
Mount Carmel's high rating (61st 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.
What would actually reduce this score
Mount Carmel's 98.2% 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 Mount Carmel's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Mount Carmel's 12,176-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Mount Carmel's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.