Newport, RI
Newport wildfire risk explained
Newport's 9,972 buildings earn a 8th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Newport at the 8th percentile, close to its 8th-percentile risk score.
Newport's building exposure, zone by zone
Newport rates 95.8% Minimal exposure against just 4.2% Direct and 0% Indirect — of 9,972 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually. At 9,972 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Where Newport ranks
Newport's risk sits at a similar level relative to Rhode Island (3rd percentile statewide) as it does nationally (8th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Newport ranks 29,136 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,620 by building count (1 is largest). Within Rhode Island alone, it ranks 35 of 36 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Rhode Island on its state page.
Newport and the insurance market
Newport's low wildfire rating (8th 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 Newport
Even with 95.8% of Newport outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones, basic hardening — gutter maintenance, ember-resistant vents — is inexpensive relative to the regional burn-probability risk noted above. Details in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 9,972 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Newport. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Newport, see the exposure-zones guide.