Sanford, AL
How exposed is Sanford to wildfire?
Sanford's 294 buildings earn a 73rd-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — well above the national norm for wildfire risk. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Sanford's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 74th percentile nationally.
Where Sanford's buildings actually sit
294 buildings are counted in Sanford, and 92.9% of them sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone — flame contact, not just ember cast, is the live possibility for most of them, against 0% rated Minimal.
How Sanford compares
Sanford's 73rd national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 54th ranking inside Alabama does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 19 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Sanford ranks 8,496 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 21,776 by building count (1 is largest). Within Alabama alone, it ranks 272 of 592 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Alabama on its state page.
Sanford and the insurance market
Sanford's 73rd-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 Sanford
Because Direct exposure dominates in Sanford (92.9%), 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
Every one of the two percentiles behind Sanford's 8,496-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Sanford, see the exposure-zones guide.