Portsmouth, OH
Portsmouth, OH's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Portsmouth's 9,189 buildings earn a 53rd-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Portsmouth at the 54th percentile, close to its 53rd-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Most of Portsmouth's buildings (82.9%) sit in the Indirect zone, where wind-blown embers rather than flame front are the mechanism USFS is scoring — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing are the interventions this pattern favors, more than defensible space alone. At 9,189 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Where Portsmouth ranks
Within Ohio, Portsmouth ranks higher (98th percentile) than it does nationally (53rd) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Portsmouth ranks 14,817 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,796 by building count (1 is largest). Within Ohio alone, it ranks 24 of 1,264 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Ohio on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Portsmouth's elevated rating (53rd percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
Hardening a home in Portsmouth
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Portsmouth (82.9% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
Where Portsmouth's figures come from
Portsmouth's 53rd-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 Portsmouth's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.