North Merritt Island, FL
How exposed is North Merritt Island to wildfire?
North Merritt Island's 4,529 buildings earn a 96th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, North Merritt Island's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 96th percentile nationally.
North Merritt Island's building exposure, zone by zone
Of North Merritt Island's 4,529 counted buildings, 50.4% carry Direct exposure and only 16.8% carry Minimal — a lopsided split that puts defensible-space clearing ahead of vents or roofing as the intervention worth doing first.
North Merritt Island against the rest of the country
North Merritt Island scores 96th nationally and 95th within Florida — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, North Merritt Island ranks 1,253 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 3,771 by building count (1 is largest). Within Florida alone, it ranks 49 of 955 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Florida on its state page.
North Merritt Island and the insurance market
North Merritt Island's 96th-percentile, very 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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
North Merritt Island's 50.4% 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
North Merritt Island's 96th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond North Merritt Island, see the exposure-zones guide.