Scottsboro, AL
Scottsboro wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Scottsboro lands at the 68th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 9,271 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Scottsboro at the 72nd national percentile — 4 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Scottsboro's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS classifies 59.5% of Scottsboro's buildings as Direct exposure, higher than its 39.3% Indirect share and far above its 1.2% Minimal share — a profile where 5,517 structures sit close enough to vegetation that lot clearing matters most. At 9,271 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Scottsboro compares
Scottsboro's 68th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 42nd ranking inside Alabama does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 26 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Scottsboro ranks 9,978 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,778 by building count (1 is largest). Within Alabama alone, it ranks 342 of 592 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Alabama on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Scottsboro
Scottsboro's 68th-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.
What would actually reduce this score
With 59.5% of Scottsboro in Direct exposure, defensible-space clearing and ember-resistant construction (vents, Class-A roofing) address the exposure this page's own numbers describe, not a generic checklist. See the home-hardening guide.
Where Scottsboro's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Scottsboro's 9,978-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Scottsboro's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.