Piedmont, SC
Piedmont wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Piedmont at the 60th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (well above the national norm for wildfire risk), a figure built from 3,010 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Piedmont at the 64th national percentile — 3 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Piedmont's building exposure, zone by zone
73.4% of Piedmont's 3,010 buildings sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone, roughly 2,209 structures close enough to burnable vegetation for flame contact, not just embers — 26.6% fall in the Indirect, ember-only zone and 0% are Minimal.
How Piedmont compares
Piedmont's 60th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 20th ranking inside South Carolina does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 41 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Piedmont ranks 12,556 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 5,422 by building count (1 is largest). Within South Carolina alone, it ranks 382 of 474 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for South Carolina on its state page.
Piedmont and the insurance market
At the 60th percentile nationally, Piedmont carries the high rating that has pushed some carriers to limit new business in similarly-scored places elsewhere in the country. Worth comparing quotes rather than assuming last year's renewal terms still apply.
Hardening a home in Piedmont
With 73.4% of Piedmont 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
Every one of the two percentiles behind Piedmont's 12,556-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Piedmont, see the exposure-zones guide.