Pinch, WV
Pinch, WV's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Out of every US place USFS scores, Pinch lands at the 86th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a figure built from its 1,471 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Pinch at the 87th national percentile — 2 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Pinch's buildings actually sit
Of Pinch's 1,471 counted buildings, 55.3% carry Direct exposure and only 0% carry Minimal — a lopsided split that puts defensible-space clearing ahead of vents or roofing as the intervention worth doing first.
Pinch against the rest of the country
Pinch scores 86th nationally and 74th within West Virginia — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Pinch ranks 4,554 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 9,309 by building count (1 is largest). Within West Virginia alone, it ranks 114 of 429 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for West Virginia on its state page.
Pinch and the insurance market
Pinch's 86th-percentile, very 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
Because Direct exposure dominates in Pinch (55.3%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 1,471 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Pinch. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Pinch, see the exposure-zones guide.