Railroad, PA
Railroad wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Railroad at the 6th national percentile for risk to structures, among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a score built from 141 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Railroad at the 6th percentile, close to its 6th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Direct exposure dominates in Railroad: 74.5% of its 141 buildings, versus 0% Indirect and 25.5% Minimal. Clearing space around a structure changes the outcome here more than any single building-material swap.
Railroad against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Railroad's 6th national percentile and its 3rd percentile inside Pennsylvania, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Railroad ranks 29,549 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 27,264 by building count (1 is largest). Within Pennsylvania alone, it ranks 1,924 of 1,991 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Pennsylvania on its state page.
Railroad and the insurance market
Railroad's low wildfire rating (6th 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 Railroad
Because Direct exposure dominates in Railroad (74.5%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
Where Railroad's figures come from
Railroad's 6th-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 Railroad's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.