Rockingham, NC
Rockingham wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Rockingham at the 80th national percentile for risk to structures, well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a score built from 4,341 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Rockingham at the 81st 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
Most of Rockingham's buildings (56.8%) 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.
Where Rockingham ranks
Rockingham scores 80th nationally and 85th within North Carolina — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Rockingham ranks 6,435 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 3,942 by building count (1 is largest). Within North Carolina alone, it ranks 120 of 772 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for North Carolina on its state page.
Rockingham and the insurance market
Rockingham's 80th-percentile, high rating is the kind of score behind a broader national pattern: insurers pulling back from the highest wildfire-risk markets, non-renewing or declining new policies outright, most visibly in California. Shopping around, not assuming automatic renewal, tends to matter here.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Rockingham's 56.8% Indirect-exposure share points at embers, not flame contact, as the main pathway — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing rank ahead of defensible space here. Detail in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 4,341 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Rockingham. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Rockingham, see the exposure-zones guide.