Ocean City, WA
How exposed is Ocean City to wildfire?
Ocean City's 414 buildings earn a 14th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Ocean City at the 14th national percentile — 1 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Ocean City's building exposure, zone by zone
63% of Ocean City's 414 buildings sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone, roughly 261 structures close enough to burnable vegetation for flame contact, not just embers — 37% fall in the Indirect, ember-only zone and 0% are Minimal.
How Ocean City compares
Ocean City's risk sits at a similar level relative to Washington (18th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (14th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Ocean City ranks 26,996 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 18,957 by building count (1 is largest). Within Washington alone, it ranks 516 of 628 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Washington on its state page.
Ocean City and the insurance market
Ocean City's low wildfire rating (14th 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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Ocean City's 63% 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
Ocean City's 14th-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 Ocean City, see the exposure-zones guide.