Rutherford, NJ
Rutherford wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Rutherford at the 29th national percentile for risk to structures, close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a score built from 5,618 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Rutherford at the 30th national percentile — 1 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Rutherford's building exposure, zone by zone
96.5% of Rutherford's 5,618 buildings sit in USFS's Minimal exposure zone, with only 3.5% rated Direct — risk here comes from regional burn probability more than proximity to burnable vegetation at the structure itself. At 5,618 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Rutherford against the rest of the country
Rutherford's risk sits at a similar level relative to New Jersey (24th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (29th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Rutherford ranks 22,505 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 3,078 by building count (1 is largest). Within New Jersey alone, it ranks 537 of 700 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for New Jersey on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Rutherford
Rutherford's moderate wildfire rating (29th 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
Rutherford's 96.5% Minimal-exposure share means structure-level hardening matters less here than it would elsewhere — still worth the low-cost basics, per the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Rutherford's 29th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Rutherford, see the exposure-zones guide.