Portsmouth, NH
Portsmouth wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Portsmouth lands at the 19th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a figure built from its 7,103 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Portsmouth at the 16th national percentile — 2 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
78.3% of Portsmouth's 7,103 buildings sit in USFS's Minimal exposure zone, with only 15.1% rated Direct — risk here comes from regional burn probability more than proximity to burnable vegetation at the structure itself. At 7,103 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Portsmouth compares
Portsmouth's 58th-percentile standing inside New Hampshire outpaces its 19th 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, Portsmouth ranks 25,597 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 2,414 by building count (1 is largest). Within New Hampshire alone, it ranks 43 of 100 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for New Hampshire on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Portsmouth's low wildfire rating (19th 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 Portsmouth
With 78.3% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Portsmouth gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
Where Portsmouth's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Portsmouth's 25,597-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Portsmouth's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.