Pickens, MS
How exposed is Pickens to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Pickens at the 71st national percentile for risk to structures, well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a score built from 595 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Pickens at the 74th national percentile — 3 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
595 buildings are counted in Pickens, and 56.8% of them sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone — flame contact, not just ember cast, is the live possibility for most of them, against 0% rated Minimal.
How Pickens compares
Pickens scores 71st nationally and 62nd within Mississippi — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Pickens ranks 9,053 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 15,897 by building count (1 is largest). Within Mississippi alone, it ranks 160 of 420 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Mississippi on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Pickens's 71st-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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
With 56.8% of Pickens 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 595 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Pickens. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Pickens, see the exposure-zones guide.