New Union, AL
New Union wildfire risk explained
USFS scores New Union at the 76th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (well above the national norm for wildfire risk), a figure built from 941 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (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 Union at the 80th percentile, close to its 76th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Of New Union's 941 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 New Union compares
New Union scores 76th nationally and 62nd within Alabama — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, New Union ranks 7,584 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 12,378 by building count (1 is largest). Within Alabama alone, it ranks 224 of 592 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Alabama on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
New Union's 76th-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 New Union
Because Direct exposure dominates in New Union (100%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
Where New Union's figures come from
New Union's 76th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what New Union's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.