Potomac, MD
Potomac, MD's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Potomac at the 17th national percentile for risk to structures, among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a score built from 14,396 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Potomac at the 16th national percentile — 1 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Potomac's building exposure, zone by zone
Direct exposure dominates in Potomac: 67.4% of its 14,396 buildings, versus 16.7% Indirect and 15.9% Minimal. Clearing space around a structure changes the outcome here more than any single building-material swap. At 14,396 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Where Potomac ranks
Potomac scores 17th nationally and 18th within Maryland — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Potomac ranks 26,187 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,041 by building count (1 is largest). Within Maryland alone, it ranks 432 of 527 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Maryland on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Potomac
Potomac's low rating (17th 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 Potomac
Because Direct exposure dominates in Potomac (67.4%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Potomac's 17th-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 Potomac, see the exposure-zones guide.