Sheldon, SC
How exposed is Sheldon to wildfire?
Sheldon's 408 buildings earn a 86th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Sheldon's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 84th percentile nationally.
Where Sheldon's buildings actually sit
408 buildings are counted in Sheldon, and 100% of them sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone — flame contact, not just ember cast, is the live possibility for most of them, against 0% rated Minimal.
Sheldon against the rest of the country
Sheldon's risk sits at a similar level relative to South Carolina (93rd percentile statewide) as it does nationally (86th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Sheldon ranks 4,453 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 19,071 by building count (1 is largest). Within South Carolina alone, it ranks 33 of 474 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for South Carolina on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Sheldon's 86th-percentile, very 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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Sheldon's 100% 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.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Sheldon's 4,453-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Sheldon, see the exposure-zones guide.