Mountain Lakes, NH
Mountain Lakes, NH's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Mountain Lakes sits at the 16th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 466 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Mountain Lakes at the 16th national percentile — 0 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Mountain Lakes's building exposure, zone by zone
Of Mountain Lakes's 466 counted buildings, 100% carry Direct exposure and only 0% carry Minimal — a lopsided split that puts defensible-space clearing ahead of vents or roofing as the intervention worth doing first.
How Mountain Lakes compares
Mountain Lakes's risk sits at a similar level relative to New Hampshire (25th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (16th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Mountain Lakes ranks 26,602 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 17,962 by building count (1 is largest). Within New Hampshire alone, it ranks 77 of 100 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for New Hampshire on its state page.
Mountain Lakes and the insurance market
Mountain Lakes's low wildfire rating (16th percentile) isn't the kind of score driving the carrier pullback making news in the highest-risk Western markets — but a standard homeowners quote is still worth comparing on its own terms.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Mountain Lakes'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.
Where Mountain Lakes's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Mountain Lakes's 26,602-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Mountain Lakes's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.