Peterman, AL
Peterman wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Peterman at the 65th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (well above the national norm for wildfire risk), a figure built from 104 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Peterman at the 67th percentile, close to its 65th-percentile risk score.
Where Peterman's buildings actually sit
USFS classifies 90.4% of Peterman's buildings as Direct exposure, higher than its 9.6% Indirect share and far above its 0% Minimal share — a profile where 94 structures sit close enough to vegetation that lot clearing matters most.
How Peterman compares
Inside Alabama, Peterman sits at just the 36th percentile even though it scores 65th 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, Peterman ranks 10,988 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 28,829 by building count (1 is largest). Within Alabama alone, it ranks 380 of 592 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Alabama on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Peterman
Peterman's 65th-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.
Hardening a home in Peterman
With 90.4% of Peterman 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
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 104 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Peterman. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Peterman, see the exposure-zones guide.