Oak Island, NC
How exposed is Oak Island to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Oak Island lands at the 89th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a figure built from its 9,757 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Oak Island's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 86th percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Most of Oak Island's buildings (60.9%) sit in the Indirect zone, where wind-blown embers rather than flame front are the mechanism USFS is scoring — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing are the interventions this pattern favors, more than defensible space alone. At 9,757 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Oak Island compares
Oak Island scores 89th nationally and 97th within North Carolina — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Oak Island ranks 3,595 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,675 by building count (1 is largest). Within North Carolina alone, it ranks 21 of 772 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for North Carolina on its state page.
Oak Island and the insurance market
Oak Island's very high rating (89th percentile) puts it among the places where the national carrier-pullback trend is most relevant — not a guarantee of a coverage problem, but a reason to shop rather than assume.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Oak Island (60.9% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 9,757 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Oak Island. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Oak Island, see the exposure-zones guide.