Scotch Meadows, NC
Scotch Meadows wildfire risk explained
Scotch Meadows's 223 buildings earn a 88th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Scotch Meadows at the 89th percentile, close to its 88th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
98.2% of Scotch Meadows's 223 buildings sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone, roughly 219 structures close enough to burnable vegetation for flame contact, not just embers — 1.8% fall in the Indirect, ember-only zone and 0% are Minimal.
How Scotch Meadows compares
There's little gap between Scotch Meadows's 88th national percentile and its 97th percentile inside North Carolina, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Scotch Meadows ranks 3,944 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 24,021 by building count (1 is largest). Within North Carolina alone, it ranks 28 of 772 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for North Carolina on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Scotch Meadows's 88th-percentile, very 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.
What would actually reduce this score
Because Direct exposure dominates in Scotch Meadows (98.2%), 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
Scotch Meadows's 88th-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 Scotch Meadows, see the exposure-zones guide.