Oak Ridge, NC
How exposed is Oak Ridge to wildfire?
USFS scores Oak Ridge at the 25th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range), a figure built from 3,601 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Oak Ridge at the 27th national percentile — 2 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Oak Ridge's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS classifies 96.2% of Oak Ridge's buildings as Direct exposure, higher than its 3.8% Indirect share and far above its 0% Minimal share — a profile where 3,465 structures sit close enough to vegetation that lot clearing matters most.
How Oak Ridge compares
Oak Ridge's 25th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 1st ranking inside North Carolina does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 25 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Oak Ridge ranks 23,520 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 4,649 by building count (1 is largest). Within North Carolina alone, it ranks 767 of 772 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for North Carolina on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Oak Ridge
Oak Ridge's moderate wildfire rating (25th 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.
Hardening a home in Oak Ridge
Oak Ridge's 96.2% Direct-exposure share means lot clearing around the structure typically outweighs any single material upgrade here. The home-hardening guide ranks the options for a place shaped like this.
More on how this number was built
Oak Ridge's 25th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Oak Ridge, see the exposure-zones guide.