Powellville, MD
How exposed is Powellville to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Powellville at the 65th national percentile for risk to structures, well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a score built from 185 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Powellville at the 64th national percentile — 0 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Powellville's buildings actually sit
185 buildings are counted in Powellville, and 68.1% 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.
Powellville against the rest of the country
Within Maryland, Powellville ranks higher (89th percentile) than it does nationally (65th) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Powellville ranks 11,184 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 25,419 by building count (1 is largest). Within Maryland alone, it ranks 58 of 527 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Maryland on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Powellville's 65th-percentile, high rating is the kind of score behind a broader national pattern: insurers pulling back from the highest wildfire-risk markets, non-renewing or declining new policies outright, most visibly in California. Shopping around, not assuming automatic renewal, tends to matter here.
What would actually reduce this score
Because Direct exposure dominates in Powellville (68.1%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
Where Powellville's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Powellville's 11,184-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Powellville's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.