Olean, NY
How exposed is Olean to wildfire?
Olean sits at the 10th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 6,533 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Olean at the 10th national percentile — 0 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
83.9% of Olean's 6,533 buildings fall in USFS's Indirect exposure zone — ember cast rather than direct flame — against 16.1% Direct and 0% Minimal. Vent screens and roofing material matter more here than lot clearing alone. At 6,533 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Olean compares
There's little gap between Olean's 10th national percentile and its 23rd percentile inside New York, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Olean ranks 28,347 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 2,658 by building count (1 is largest). Within New York alone, it ranks 988 of 1,289 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for New York on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Olean's low wildfire rating (10th 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
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Olean (83.9% 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 6,533 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Olean. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Olean, see the exposure-zones guide.