Nittany, PA
Nittany wildfire risk explained
Nittany sits at the 54th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 509 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Nittany at the 52nd national percentile — 2 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
509 buildings are counted in Nittany, and 75.8% 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.
How Nittany compares
Compare Nittany's two percentiles: 89th within Pennsylvania, only 54th nationally — a gap of 35 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Nittany ranks 14,542 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 17,197 by building count (1 is largest). Within Pennsylvania alone, it ranks 216 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
Nittany's elevated wildfire rating (54th 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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Nittany's 75.8% 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
Every one of the two percentiles behind Nittany's 14,542-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Nittany, see the exposure-zones guide.