Ocean City, NJ
Ocean City, NJ's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Ocean City sits at the 87th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 11,844 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Ocean City at the 80th national percentile — 7 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Ocean City rates 75.2% Minimal exposure against just 0.4% Direct and 24.4% Indirect — of 11,844 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually. At 11,844 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Ocean City against the rest of the country
Ocean City's risk sits at a similar level relative to New Jersey (93rd percentile statewide) as it does nationally (87th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Ocean City ranks 4,197 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,319 by building count (1 is largest). Within New Jersey alone, it ranks 50 of 700 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for New Jersey on its state page.
Ocean City and the insurance market
Ocean City's very high rating (87th 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.
Hardening a home in Ocean City
With 75.2% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Ocean City gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
Where Ocean City's figures come from
Ocean City's 87th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Ocean City's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.