Narrows, VA
Narrows wildfire risk explained
Narrows sits at the 67th 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 1,160 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Narrows's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 67th percentile nationally.
Narrows's building exposure, zone by zone
Most of Narrows's buildings (78.5%) 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.
Where Narrows ranks
There's little gap between Narrows's 67th national percentile and its 79th percentile inside Virginia, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Narrows ranks 10,386 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 10,893 by building count (1 is largest). Within Virginia alone, it ranks 144 of 681 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Virginia on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Narrows's 67th-percentile, high rating is the kind of score behind a broader national pattern: insurers pulling back from the highest wildfire-risk markets, non-renewing or declining new policies outright, most visibly in California. Shopping around, not assuming automatic renewal, tends to matter here.
Hardening a home in Narrows
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Narrows (78.5% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
More on how this number was built
Narrows's 67th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Narrows, see the exposure-zones guide.