Mount Charleston, NV
Mount Charleston wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Mount Charleston lands at the 95th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a figure built from its 381 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 Charleston at the 92nd percentile, close to its 95th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Direct exposure dominates in Mount Charleston: 100% of its 381 buildings, versus 0% Indirect and 0% Minimal. Clearing space around a structure changes the outcome here more than any single building-material swap.
How Mount Charleston compares
Mount Charleston's 95th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 56th ranking inside Nevada does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 40 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Mount Charleston ranks 1,483 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 19,626 by building count (1 is largest). Within Nevada alone, it ranks 55 of 123 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Nevada on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Mount Charleston's very high rating (95th 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 Charleston's 100% 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
Mount Charleston's 95th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Mount Charleston, see the exposure-zones guide.