Sewickley Heights, PA
How exposed is Sewickley Heights to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Sewickley Heights lands at the 36th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a figure built from its 639 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Sewickley Heights at the 36th national percentile — 0 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
99.4% of Sewickley Heights's 639 buildings sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone, roughly 635 structures close enough to burnable vegetation for flame contact, not just embers — 0.6% fall in the Indirect, ember-only zone and 0% are Minimal.
Where Sewickley Heights ranks
Compare Sewickley Heights's two percentiles: 52nd within Pennsylvania, only 36th nationally — a gap of 16 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Sewickley Heights ranks 20,277 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 15,347 by building count (1 is largest). Within Pennsylvania alone, it ranks 967 of 1,991 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Pennsylvania on its state page.
Sewickley Heights and the insurance market
Sewickley Heights's moderate wildfire rating (36th percentile) isn't the kind of score driving the carrier pullback making news in the highest-risk Western markets — but a standard homeowners quote is still worth comparing on its own terms.
Hardening a home in Sewickley Heights
Sewickley Heights's 99.4% Direct-exposure share means lot clearing around the structure typically outweighs any single material upgrade here. The home-hardening guide ranks the options for a place shaped like this.
Where Sewickley Heights's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 639 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Sewickley Heights. The exposure-zones guide covers what Sewickley Heights's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.