Ripley, MS
Ripley wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Ripley lands at the 78th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 2,898 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Ripley at the 81st percentile, close to its 78th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
63.3% of Ripley's 2,898 buildings sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone, roughly 1,835 structures close enough to burnable vegetation for flame contact, not just embers — 36.7% fall in the Indirect, ember-only zone and 0% are Minimal.
How Ripley compares
Ripley's risk sits at a similar level relative to Mississippi (77th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (78th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Ripley ranks 6,898 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 5,587 by building count (1 is largest). Within Mississippi alone, it ranks 98 of 420 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Mississippi on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Ripley's high rating (78th percentile) puts it among the places where the national carrier-pullback trend is most relevant — not a guarantee of a coverage problem, but a reason to shop rather than assume.
What would actually reduce this score
Ripley's 63.3% 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
Every one of the two percentiles behind Ripley's 6,898-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Ripley, see the exposure-zones guide.