Norwalk, OH
Norwalk wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Norwalk lands at the 16th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a figure built from its 7,573 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Norwalk at the 14th percentile, close to its 16th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Norwalk rates 85.7% Minimal exposure against just 13.3% Direct and 1% Indirect — of 7,573 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually. At 7,573 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Where Norwalk ranks
Norwalk's 45th-percentile standing inside Ohio outpaces its 16th national percentile — this is a hotter spot than most of its own state, even though the state as a whole runs cooler nationally. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Norwalk ranks 26,386 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 2,260 by building count (1 is largest). Within Ohio alone, it ranks 697 of 1,264 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Ohio on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Norwalk's low rating (16th percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
With 85.7% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Norwalk gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
Where Norwalk's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 7,573 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Norwalk. The exposure-zones guide covers what Norwalk's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.