Powell, TN
How exposed is Powell to wildfire?
USFS scores Powell at the 73rd national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (well above the national norm for wildfire risk), a figure built from 5,953 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Powell at the 77th national percentile — 4 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
USFS puts 54.5% of Powell's 5,953 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 33.9% Direct and 11.7% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to. At 5,953 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Powell against the rest of the country
Powell's risk sits at a similar level relative to Tennessee (72nd percentile statewide) as it does nationally (73rd) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Powell ranks 8,618 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 2,893 by building count (1 is largest). Within Tennessee alone, it ranks 144 of 502 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Tennessee on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Powell
Powell's high rating (73rd 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
Because 54.5% of Powell's buildings sit in the Indirect zone, sealing the ember pathway (vents, roofing, gutters) is the intervention this page's data actually supports — see the home-hardening guide.
Where Powell's figures come from
Powell's 73rd-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 Powell's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.