Novi, MI
Novi wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Novi lands at the 12th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a figure built from its 18,873 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 Novi at the 14th percentile, close to its 12th-percentile risk score.
Where Novi's buildings actually sit
Most of Novi's buildings (74.1% of 18,873) fall outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones entirely — that doesn't zero out the score above, it means the risk is regional, not structure-by-structure. At 18,873 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Novi against the rest of the country
Compare Novi's two percentiles: 42nd within Michigan, only 12th nationally — a gap of 30 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Novi ranks 27,703 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 752 by building count (1 is largest). Within Michigan alone, it ranks 435 of 745 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Michigan on its state page.
Novi and the insurance market
At the 12th national percentile, Novi rates low for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
Hardening a home in Novi
Even with 74.1% of Novi outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones, basic hardening — gutter maintenance, ember-resistant vents — is inexpensive relative to the regional burn-probability risk noted above. Details in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 18,873 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Novi. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Novi, see the exposure-zones guide.