Ridgeside, TN
Ridgeside wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Ridgeside at the 63rd national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (well above the national norm for wildfire risk), a figure built from 173 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Ridgeside's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 68th percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Only 46.8% of Ridgeside's 173 buildings carry Direct exposure and 0% carry Indirect; the remaining 53.2% are Minimal, which shifts the risk driving this page's score toward the surrounding landscape rather than any one structure.
How Ridgeside compares
Ridgeside scores 63rd nationally and 55th within Tennessee — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Ridgeside ranks 11,706 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 25,920 by building count (1 is largest). Within Tennessee alone, it ranks 227 of 502 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Tennessee on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Ridgeside
At the 63rd percentile nationally, Ridgeside carries the high rating that has pushed some carriers to limit new business in similarly-scored places elsewhere in the country. Worth comparing quotes rather than assuming last year's renewal terms still apply.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Ridgeside's 53.2% Minimal-exposure share means structure-level hardening matters less here than it would elsewhere — still worth the low-cost basics, per the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Ridgeside's 63rd-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Ridgeside, see the exposure-zones guide.