Norfolk, VA
Norfolk, VA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Norfolk sits at the 37th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 71,725 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 Norfolk at the 38th percentile, close to its 37th-percentile risk score.
Where Norfolk's buildings actually sit
Most of Norfolk's buildings (87.9% of 71,725) fall outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones entirely — that doesn't zero out the score above, it means the risk is regional, not structure-by-structure. At 71,725 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Where Norfolk ranks
Norfolk scores 37th nationally and 28th within Virginia — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Norfolk ranks 19,778 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 110 by building count (1 is largest). Within Virginia alone, it ranks 490 of 681 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Virginia on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Norfolk's moderate wildfire rating (37th 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.
What would actually reduce this score
With 87.9% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Norfolk gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
More on how this number was built
Norfolk's 37th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Norfolk, see the exposure-zones guide.