New Bedford, PA
New Bedford wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, New Bedford lands at the 39th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a figure built from its 623 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 New Bedford at the 40th percentile, close to its 39th-percentile risk score.
Where New Bedford's buildings actually sit
623 buildings are counted in New Bedford, and 88.1% of them sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone — flame contact, not just ember cast, is the live possibility for most of them, against 0% rated Minimal.
New Bedford against the rest of the country
Compare New Bedford's two percentiles: 60th within Pennsylvania, only 39th nationally — a gap of 21 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, New Bedford ranks 19,361 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 15,521 by building count (1 is largest). Within Pennsylvania alone, it ranks 811 of 1,991 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Pennsylvania on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
New Bedford's moderate wildfire rating (39th 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.
Hardening a home in New Bedford
New Bedford's 88.1% 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
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 623 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for New Bedford. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond New Bedford, see the exposure-zones guide.