Ridgewood, NJ
How exposed is Ridgewood to wildfire?
USFS scores Ridgewood at the 22nd national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range), a figure built from 8,701 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Ridgewood at the 23rd national percentile — 1 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Direct exposure dominates in Ridgewood: 50.6% of its 8,701 buildings, versus 0% Indirect and 49.4% Minimal. Clearing space around a structure changes the outcome here more than any single building-material swap. At 8,701 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Ridgewood against the rest of the country
Ridgewood scores 22nd nationally and 8th within New Jersey — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Ridgewood ranks 24,493 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,914 by building count (1 is largest). Within New Jersey alone, it ranks 643 of 700 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for New Jersey on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Ridgewood's moderate wildfire rating (22nd 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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Because Direct exposure dominates in Ridgewood (50.6%), 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
Ridgewood's 22nd-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Ridgewood, see the exposure-zones guide.