Pachuta, MS
Pachuta wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Pachuta at the 62nd national percentile for risk to structures, well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a score built from 196 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Pachuta's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 65th percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
196 buildings are counted in Pachuta, and 74.5% of them sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone — flame contact, not just ember cast, is the live possibility for most of them, against 0% rated Minimal.
How Pachuta compares
Inside Mississippi, Pachuta sits at just the 39th percentile even though it scores 62nd nationally — the state's overall wildfire exposure is high enough to make this a relatively quiet corner of it. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Pachuta ranks 11,855 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 24,999 by building count (1 is largest). Within Mississippi alone, it ranks 257 of 420 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Mississippi on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Pachuta's 62nd-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.
What would actually reduce this score
With 74.5% of Pachuta in Direct exposure, defensible-space clearing and ember-resistant construction (vents, Class-A roofing) address the exposure this page's own numbers describe, not a generic checklist. See the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Pachuta's 62nd-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 Pachuta, see the exposure-zones guide.