Saks, AL
Saks, AL's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Out of every US place USFS scores, Saks lands at the 80th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 5,482 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Saks's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 83rd percentile nationally.
Saks's building exposure, zone by zone
Direct exposure dominates in Saks: 80.5% of its 5,482 buildings, versus 10.6% Indirect and 8.9% Minimal. Clearing space around a structure changes the outcome here more than any single building-material swap. At 5,482 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Where Saks ranks
Saks scores 80th nationally and 75th within Alabama — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Saks ranks 6,291 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 3,147 by building count (1 is largest). Within Alabama alone, it ranks 148 of 592 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Alabama on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Saks'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.
Hardening a home in Saks
Because Direct exposure dominates in Saks (80.5%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Saks's 80th-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 Saks, see the exposure-zones guide.