Putney, VT
How exposed is Putney to wildfire?
USFS scores Putney at the 17th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally), a figure built from 328 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Putney at the 17th national percentile — 0 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Putney's buildings actually sit
73.2% of Putney's 328 buildings sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone, roughly 240 structures close enough to burnable vegetation for flame contact, not just embers — 26.8% fall in the Indirect, ember-only zone and 0% are Minimal.
How Putney compares
Compare Putney's two percentiles: 68th within Vermont, only 17th nationally — a gap of 51 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Putney ranks 26,267 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 20,882 by building count (1 is largest). Within Vermont alone, it ranks 58 of 179 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Vermont on its state page.
Putney and the insurance market
At the 17th national percentile, Putney rates low for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
What would actually reduce this score
Putney's 73.2% Direct-exposure share means lot clearing around the structure typically outweighs any single material upgrade here. The home-hardening guide ranks the options for a place shaped like this.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 328 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Putney. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Putney, see the exposure-zones guide.