New Ellenton, SC
New Ellenton wildfire risk explained
New Ellenton sits at the 75th 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 1,403 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (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 Ellenton at the 73rd percentile, close to its 75th-percentile risk score.
New Ellenton's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS classifies 66.6% of New Ellenton's buildings as Direct exposure, higher than its 33.4% Indirect share and far above its 0% Minimal share — a profile where 935 structures sit close enough to vegetation that lot clearing matters most.
Where New Ellenton ranks
New Ellenton's risk sits at a similar level relative to South Carolina (73rd percentile statewide) as it does nationally (75th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, New Ellenton ranks 8,012 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 9,615 by building count (1 is largest). Within South Carolina alone, it ranks 129 of 474 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for South Carolina on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
New Ellenton's 75th-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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
New Ellenton's 66.6% 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
New Ellenton's 75th-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 New Ellenton, see the exposure-zones guide.