Ruffin, NC
Ruffin wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Ruffin at the 31st national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range), a figure built from 322 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Ruffin at the 32nd percentile, close to its 31st-percentile risk score.
Where Ruffin's buildings actually sit
89.1% of Ruffin's 322 buildings sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone, roughly 287 structures close enough to burnable vegetation for flame contact, not just embers — 10.9% fall in the Indirect, ember-only zone and 0% are Minimal.
Ruffin against the rest of the country
Ruffin's 31st national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 4th ranking inside North Carolina does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 28 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Ruffin ranks 21,749 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 21,043 by building count (1 is largest). Within North Carolina alone, it ranks 745 of 772 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for North Carolina on its state page.
Ruffin and the insurance market
Ruffin's moderate wildfire rating (31st 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.
What would actually reduce this score
With 89.1% of Ruffin in Direct exposure, defensible-space clearing and ember-resistant construction (vents, Class-A roofing) address the exposure this page's own numbers describe, not a generic checklist. See the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Ruffin's 31st-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 Ruffin, see the exposure-zones guide.