Silver Lake, NC
Silver Lake wildfire risk explained
Silver Lake sits at the 65th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 2,841 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Silver Lake at the 59th percentile, close to its 65th-percentile risk score.
Silver Lake's building exposure, zone by zone
Most of Silver Lake's buildings (71.3%) sit in the Indirect zone, where wind-blown embers rather than flame front are the mechanism USFS is scoring — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing are the interventions this pattern favors, more than defensible space alone.
How Silver Lake compares
Silver Lake scores 65th nationally and 65th within North Carolina — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Silver Lake ranks 10,912 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 5,677 by building count (1 is largest). Within North Carolina alone, it ranks 268 of 772 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for North Carolina on its state page.
Silver Lake and the insurance market
Silver Lake's high rating (65th 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.
Hardening a home in Silver Lake
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Silver Lake (71.3% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
Where Silver Lake's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Silver Lake's 10,912-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Silver Lake's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.