North Bennington, VT
North Bennington wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts North Bennington at the 20th national percentile for risk to structures, among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a score built from 586 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks North Bennington at the 20th national percentile — 0 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Most of North Bennington's buildings (51%) sit in the Indirect zone, where wind-blown embers rather than flame front are the mechanism USFS is scoring — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing are the interventions this pattern favors, more than defensible space alone.
How North Bennington compares
Compare North Bennington's two percentiles: 89th within Vermont, only 20th nationally — a gap of 70 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, North Bennington ranks 25,317 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 16,028 by building count (1 is largest). Within Vermont alone, it ranks 20 of 179 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Vermont on its state page.
North Bennington and the insurance market
At the 20th national percentile, North Bennington rates low for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
What would actually reduce this score
North Bennington's 51% Indirect-exposure share points at embers, not flame contact, as the main pathway — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing rank ahead of defensible space here. Detail in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind North Bennington's 25,317-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond North Bennington, see the exposure-zones guide.