Palmyra, VA
Palmyra wildfire risk explained
Palmyra sits at the 46th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 130 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Palmyra at the 48th percentile, close to its 46th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Of Palmyra's 130 counted buildings, 92.3% carry Direct exposure and only 0% carry Minimal — a lopsided split that puts defensible-space clearing ahead of vents or roofing as the intervention worth doing first.
Where Palmyra ranks
Palmyra scores 46th nationally and 45th within Virginia — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Palmyra ranks 17,099 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 27,736 by building count (1 is largest). Within Virginia alone, it ranks 372 of 681 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Virginia on its state page.
Palmyra and the insurance market
Palmyra's elevated wildfire rating (46th 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.
What would actually reduce this score
With 92.3% of Palmyra 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
Every one of the two percentiles behind Palmyra's 17,099-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Palmyra, see the exposure-zones guide.