Section, AL
How exposed is Section to wildfire?
USFS scores Section at the 72nd national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (well above the national norm for wildfire risk), a figure built from 605 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Section at the 75th national percentile — 3 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Section's buildings actually sit
Of Section's 605 counted buildings, 78.5% carry Direct exposure and only 0% carry Minimal — a lopsided split that puts defensible-space clearing ahead of vents or roofing as the intervention worth doing first.
Where Section ranks
Section's 72nd national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 51st ranking inside Alabama does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 21 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Section ranks 8,811 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 15,757 by building count (1 is largest). Within Alabama alone, it ranks 289 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
Section's 72nd-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 78.5% of Section 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.
More on how this number was built
Section's 72nd-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 Section, see the exposure-zones guide.