Salem, OH
How exposed is Salem to wildfire?
USFS scores Salem at the 32nd national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range), a figure built from 6,375 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Salem at the 32nd national percentile — 0 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Salem's building exposure, zone by zone
Indirect exposure is dominant in Salem (61.7% of 6,375 buildings): far enough from burnable vegetation to avoid flame contact, close enough for wind-blown embers. Only 22.2% sit in the Direct zone. At 6,375 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Salem compares
Within Ohio, Salem ranks higher (69th percentile) than it does nationally (32nd) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Salem ranks 21,564 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 2,717 by building count (1 is largest). Within Ohio alone, it ranks 392 of 1,264 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Ohio on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Salem
Salem's moderate rating (32nd 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
Salem's 61.7% 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 6,375 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Salem. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Salem, see the exposure-zones guide.