Pawtucket, RI
Pawtucket wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Pawtucket at the 11th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally), a figure built from 21,289 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Pawtucket's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 10th percentile nationally.
Pawtucket's building exposure, zone by zone
86% of Pawtucket's 21,289 buildings sit in USFS's Minimal exposure zone, with only 0.2% rated Direct — risk here comes from regional burn probability more than proximity to burnable vegetation at the structure itself. At 21,289 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Pawtucket compares
Pawtucket scores 11th nationally and 23rd within Rhode Island — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Pawtucket ranks 28,190 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 653 by building count (1 is largest). Within Rhode Island alone, it ranks 28 of 36 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Rhode Island on its state page.
Pawtucket and the insurance market
Pawtucket's low wildfire rating (11th 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.
Hardening a home in Pawtucket
With 86% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Pawtucket gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
Where Pawtucket's figures come from
Pawtucket's 11th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Pawtucket's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.