Pen Argyl, PA
How exposed is Pen Argyl to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Pen Argyl lands at the 60th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 1,289 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Pen Argyl at the 57th national percentile — 3 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Pen Argyl's building exposure, zone by zone
Most of Pen Argyl's buildings (83.7%) sit in the Indirect zone, where wind-blown embers rather than flame front are the mechanism USFS is scoring — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing are the interventions this pattern favors, more than defensible space alone.
Pen Argyl against the rest of the country
Within Pennsylvania, Pen Argyl ranks higher (97th percentile) than it does nationally (60th) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Pen Argyl ranks 12,525 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 10,136 by building count (1 is largest). Within Pennsylvania alone, it ranks 69 of 1,991 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Pennsylvania on its state page.
Pen Argyl and the insurance market
Pen Argyl's 60th-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
Pen Argyl's 83.7% Indirect-exposure share points at embers, not flame contact, as the main pathway — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing rank ahead of defensible space here. Detail in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 1,289 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Pen Argyl. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Pen Argyl, see the exposure-zones guide.