Newberry, SC
How exposed is Newberry to wildfire?
Newberry's 5,150 buildings earn a 64th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — well above the national norm for wildfire risk. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Newberry at the 66th percentile, close to its 64th-percentile risk score.
Where Newberry's buildings actually sit
Indirect exposure is dominant in Newberry (57.3% of 5,150 buildings): far enough from burnable vegetation to avoid flame contact, close enough for wind-blown embers. Only 30.9% sit in the Direct zone. At 5,150 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Newberry compares
Newberry ranks lower within South Carolina (30th percentile statewide) than its 64th national percentile suggests alone — a calmer spot in a state where wildfire risk generally runs high. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Newberry ranks 11,451 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 3,347 by building count (1 is largest). Within South Carolina alone, it ranks 332 of 474 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for South Carolina on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Newberry
Newberry's 64th-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.
What would actually reduce this score
Because 57.3% of Newberry's buildings sit in the Indirect zone, sealing the ember pathway (vents, roofing, gutters) is the intervention this page's data actually supports — see the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 5,150 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Newberry. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Newberry, see the exposure-zones guide.