Oxford, AL
How exposed is Oxford to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Oxford at the 81st national percentile for risk to structures, in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a score built from 11,235 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Oxford's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 85th percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
USFS classifies 68.4% of Oxford's buildings as Direct exposure, higher than its 25.2% Indirect share and far above its 6.4% Minimal share — a profile where 7,681 structures sit close enough to vegetation that lot clearing matters most. At 11,235 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Where Oxford ranks
Oxford's risk sits at a similar level relative to Alabama (79th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (81st) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Oxford ranks 5,975 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,409 by building count (1 is largest). Within Alabama alone, it ranks 128 of 592 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Alabama on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Oxford's 81st-percentile, very 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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Oxford's 68.4% 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.
Where Oxford's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 11,235 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Oxford. The exposure-zones guide covers what Oxford's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.