Ooltewah, TN
How exposed is Ooltewah to wildfire?
Ooltewah's 350 buildings earn a 66th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — well above the national norm for wildfire risk. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Ooltewah at the 70th national percentile — 4 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
Indirect exposure is dominant in Ooltewah (59.7% of 350 buildings): far enough from burnable vegetation to avoid flame contact, close enough for wind-blown embers. Only 40.3% sit in the Direct zone.
Ooltewah against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Ooltewah's 66th national percentile and its 58th percentile inside Tennessee, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Ooltewah ranks 10,759 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 20,321 by building count (1 is largest). Within Tennessee alone, it ranks 212 of 502 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Tennessee on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Ooltewah's 66th-percentile, high rating is the kind of score behind a broader national pattern: insurers pulling back from the highest wildfire-risk markets, non-renewing or declining new policies outright, most visibly in California. Shopping around, not assuming automatic renewal, tends to matter here.
Hardening a home in Ooltewah
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Ooltewah (59.7% 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 350 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Ooltewah. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Ooltewah, see the exposure-zones guide.