Orange Beach, AL
Orange Beach, AL's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Out of every US place USFS scores, Orange Beach lands at the 92nd percentile for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a figure built from its 5,634 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Orange Beach's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 91st percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Indirect exposure is dominant in Orange Beach (64.1% of 5,634 buildings): far enough from burnable vegetation to avoid flame contact, close enough for wind-blown embers. Only 21.2% sit in the Direct zone. At 5,634 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Orange Beach compares
Orange Beach scores 92nd nationally and 99th within Alabama — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Orange Beach ranks 2,507 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 3,067 by building count (1 is largest). Within Alabama alone, it ranks 6 of 592 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Alabama on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Orange Beach
Orange Beach's very high rating (92nd 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.
What would actually reduce this score
Because 64.1% of Orange Beach's buildings sit in the Indirect zone, sealing the ember pathway (vents, roofing, gutters) is the intervention this page's data actually supports — see the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 5,634 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Orange Beach. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Orange Beach, see the exposure-zones guide.