Sharptown, MD
Sharptown, MD's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Sharptown at the 75th national percentile for risk to structures, well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a score built from 457 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Sharptown at the 75th percentile, close to its 75th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
76.6% of Sharptown's 457 buildings fall in USFS's Indirect exposure zone — ember cast rather than direct flame — against 22.1% Direct and 1.3% Minimal. Vent screens and roofing material matter more here than lot clearing alone.
How Sharptown compares
Compare Sharptown's two percentiles: 95th within Maryland, only 75th nationally — a gap of 20 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Sharptown ranks 7,848 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 18,129 by building count (1 is largest). Within Maryland alone, it ranks 28 of 527 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Maryland on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Sharptown
Sharptown's high rating (75th percentile) puts it among the places where the national carrier-pullback trend is most relevant — not a guarantee of a coverage problem, but a reason to shop rather than assume.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Sharptown (76.6% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
Where Sharptown's figures come from
Sharptown's 75th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Sharptown's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.