Pinehurst, NC
Pinehurst wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Pinehurst lands at the 79th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 8,852 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Pinehurst at the 79th national percentile — 1 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Pinehurst's building exposure, zone by zone
63.3% of Pinehurst's 8,852 buildings sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone, roughly 5,601 structures close enough to burnable vegetation for flame contact, not just embers — 31.2% fall in the Indirect, ember-only zone and 5.5% are Minimal. At 8,852 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Pinehurst compares
There's little gap between Pinehurst's 79th national percentile and its 83rd percentile inside North Carolina, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Pinehurst ranks 6,716 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,881 by building count (1 is largest). Within North Carolina alone, it ranks 136 of 772 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for North Carolina on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Pinehurst
Pinehurst's high rating (79th percentile) puts it among the places where the national carrier-pullback trend is most relevant — not a guarantee of a coverage problem, but a reason to shop rather than assume.
What would actually reduce this score
Pinehurst's 63.3% Direct-exposure share means lot clearing around the structure typically outweighs any single material upgrade here. The home-hardening guide ranks the options for a place shaped like this.
Where Pinehurst's figures come from
Pinehurst's 79th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Pinehurst's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.