Port Penn, DE
Port Penn wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Port Penn lands at the 48th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 133 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Port Penn at the 45th national percentile — 4 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
133 buildings are counted in Port Penn, and 86.5% 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.
Where Port Penn ranks
Port Penn's 78th-percentile standing inside Delaware outpaces its 48th national percentile — this is a hotter spot than most of its own state, even though the state as a whole runs cooler nationally. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Port Penn ranks 16,285 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 27,568 by building count (1 is largest). Within Delaware alone, it ranks 19 of 79 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Delaware on its state page.
Port Penn and the insurance market
Port Penn's elevated wildfire rating (48th percentile) isn't the kind of score driving the carrier pullback making news in the highest-risk Western markets — but a standard homeowners quote is still worth comparing on its own terms.
Hardening a home in Port Penn
Port Penn's 86.5% 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.
More on how this number was built
Port Penn's 48th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Port Penn, see the exposure-zones guide.