Pownal Center, VT
Pownal Center, VT's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Pownal Center's 301 buildings earn a 21st-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Pownal Center's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 21st percentile nationally.
Where Pownal Center's buildings actually sit
Of Pownal Center's 301 counted buildings, 79.1% carry Direct exposure and only 0% carry Minimal — a lopsided split that puts defensible-space clearing ahead of vents or roofing as the intervention worth doing first.
Pownal Center against the rest of the country
Pownal Center's 94th-percentile standing inside Vermont outpaces its 21st 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, Pownal Center ranks 24,785 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 21,617 by building count (1 is largest). Within Vermont alone, it ranks 12 of 179 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Vermont on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Pownal Center
Pownal Center's moderate wildfire rating (21st 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 Pownal Center
Because Direct exposure dominates in Pownal Center (79.1%), 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
Every one of the two percentiles behind Pownal Center's 24,785-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Pownal Center, see the exposure-zones guide.