Raleigh, NC
Raleigh wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Raleigh at the 31st national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range), a figure built from 126,122 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Raleigh at the 33rd percentile, close to its 31st-percentile risk score.
Where Raleigh's buildings actually sit
Of Raleigh's 126,122 counted buildings, 39.7% carry Direct exposure and only 38.9% carry Minimal — a lopsided split that puts defensible-space clearing ahead of vents or roofing as the intervention worth doing first. At 126,122 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Raleigh against the rest of the country
Inside North Carolina, Raleigh sits at just the 3rd percentile even though it scores 31st nationally — the state's overall wildfire exposure is high enough to make this a relatively quiet corner of it. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Raleigh ranks 21,814 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 48 by building count (1 is largest). Within North Carolina alone, it ranks 747 of 772 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for North Carolina on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Raleigh's moderate rating (31st percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
What would actually reduce this score
With 39.7% of Raleigh in Direct exposure, defensible-space clearing and ember-resistant construction (vents, Class-A roofing) address the exposure this page's own numbers describe, not a generic checklist. See the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 126,122 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Raleigh. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Raleigh, see the exposure-zones guide.