Sharon, MA
How exposed is Sharon to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Sharon lands at the 27th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a figure built from its 2,326 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Sharon at the 22nd national percentile — 5 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Sharon's buildings actually sit
Of Sharon's 2,326 counted buildings, 40.3% carry Direct exposure and only 34.4% carry Minimal — a lopsided split that puts defensible-space clearing ahead of vents or roofing as the intervention worth doing first.
Sharon against the rest of the country
Within Massachusetts, Sharon ranks higher (57th percentile) than it does nationally (27th) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Sharon ranks 23,069 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 6,652 by building count (1 is largest). Within Massachusetts alone, it ranks 107 of 248 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Massachusetts on its state page.
Sharon and the insurance market
Sharon's moderate wildfire rating (27th 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.
What would actually reduce this score
Sharon's 40.3% 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 Sharon's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Sharon's 23,069-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Sharon's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.