Pine Beach, NJ
Pine Beach, NJ's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Pine Beach sits at the 69th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 1,028 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Pine Beach at the 67th percentile, close to its 69th-percentile risk score.
Pine Beach's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS puts 84.5% of Pine Beach's 1,028 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 8.6% Direct and 6.9% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
Where Pine Beach ranks
There's little gap between Pine Beach's 69th national percentile and its 79th percentile inside New Jersey, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Pine Beach ranks 9,678 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 11,739 by building count (1 is largest). Within New Jersey alone, it ranks 147 of 700 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for New Jersey on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Pine Beach
At the 69th percentile nationally, Pine Beach 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.
What would actually reduce this score
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Pine Beach (84.5% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 1,028 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Pine Beach. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Pine Beach, see the exposure-zones guide.