Rockaway, NJ
How exposed is Rockaway to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Rockaway at the 24th national percentile for risk to structures, close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a score built from 2,627 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Rockaway at the 24th national percentile — 0 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Most of Rockaway's buildings (41.6%) sit in the Indirect zone, where wind-blown embers rather than flame front are the mechanism USFS is scoring — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing are the interventions this pattern favors, more than defensible space alone.
How Rockaway compares
Rockaway's risk sits at a similar level relative to New Jersey (14th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (24th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Rockaway ranks 23,865 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 6,055 by building count (1 is largest). Within New Jersey alone, it ranks 602 of 700 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for New Jersey on its state page.
Rockaway and the insurance market
Rockaway's moderate rating (24th 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
Because 41.6% of Rockaway's buildings sit in the Indirect zone, sealing the ember pathway (vents, roofing, gutters) is the intervention this page's data actually supports — see the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Rockaway's 24th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Rockaway, see the exposure-zones guide.