Philipsburg, PA
How exposed is Philipsburg to wildfire?
USFS scores Philipsburg at the 49th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (modestly above the national average for wildfire risk), a figure built from 1,411 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Philipsburg at the 48th national percentile — 1 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Philipsburg's buildings actually sit
Indirect exposure is dominant in Philipsburg (92.2% of 1,411 buildings): far enough from burnable vegetation to avoid flame contact, close enough for wind-blown embers. Only 7.8% sit in the Direct zone.
How Philipsburg compares
Compare Philipsburg's two percentiles: 80th within Pennsylvania, only 49th nationally — a gap of 31 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Philipsburg ranks 16,116 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 9,584 by building count (1 is largest). Within Pennsylvania alone, it ranks 403 of 1,991 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Pennsylvania on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Philipsburg's elevated wildfire rating (49th 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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Philipsburg's 92.2% 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
Every one of the two percentiles behind Philipsburg's 16,116-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Philipsburg, see the exposure-zones guide.