Mount Rainier, MD
Mount Rainier wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Mount Rainier lands at the 22nd percentile for wildfire risk to structures — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a figure built from its 1,619 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 Rainier at the 23rd percentile, close to its 22nd-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
98% of Mount Rainier's 1,619 buildings sit in USFS's Minimal exposure zone, with only 2% rated Direct — risk here comes from regional burn probability more than proximity to burnable vegetation at the structure itself.
How Mount Rainier compares
There's little gap between Mount Rainier's 22nd national percentile and its 30th percentile inside Maryland, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Mount Rainier ranks 24,649 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 8,695 by building count (1 is largest). Within Maryland alone, it ranks 369 of 527 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Maryland on its state page.
Mount Rainier and the insurance market
Mount Rainier's moderate rating (22nd percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
Hardening a home in Mount Rainier
Even with 98% of Mount Rainier outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones, basic hardening — gutter maintenance, ember-resistant vents — is inexpensive relative to the regional burn-probability risk noted above. Details in the home-hardening guide.
Where Mount Rainier's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Mount Rainier's 24,649-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Mount Rainier's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.