Northfork, WV
Northfork, WV's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Northfork at the 86th national percentile for risk to structures, in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a score built from 295 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Northfork at the 89th percentile, close to its 86th-percentile risk score.
Northfork's building exposure, zone by zone
295 buildings are counted in Northfork, and 62% of them are Indirect exposure — ember-driven risk rather than the 38% in Direct exposure or the 0% rated Minimal.
Northfork against the rest of the country
Northfork scores 86th nationally and 75th within West 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, Northfork ranks 4,335 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 21,775 by building count (1 is largest). Within West Virginia alone, it ranks 109 of 429 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for West Virginia on its state page.
Northfork and the insurance market
Northfork's 86th-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.
Hardening a home in Northfork
Because 62% of Northfork'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.
Where Northfork's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Northfork's 4,335-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Northfork's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.