Northern Cambria, PA
How exposed is Northern Cambria to wildfire?
USFS scores Northern Cambria at the 49th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (modestly above the national average for wildfire risk), a figure built from 2,023 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Northern Cambria at the 49th national percentile — 0 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Northern Cambria's buildings actually sit
2,023 buildings are counted in Northern Cambria, and 70.8% of them are Indirect exposure — ember-driven risk rather than the 29.2% in Direct exposure or the 0% rated Minimal.
Northern Cambria against the rest of the country
Within Pennsylvania, Northern Cambria ranks higher (79th percentile) than it does nationally (49th) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Northern Cambria ranks 16,209 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 7,408 by building count (1 is largest). Within Pennsylvania alone, it ranks 410 of 1,991 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Pennsylvania on its state page.
Northern Cambria and the insurance market
Northern Cambria's elevated wildfire rating (49th 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
Because 70.8% of Northern Cambria's buildings sit in the Indirect zone, sealing the ember pathway (vents, roofing, gutters) is the intervention this page's data actually supports — see the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Northern Cambria's 49th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Northern Cambria, see the exposure-zones guide.