Sims, NC
Sims wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Sims at the 38th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range), a figure built from 209 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Sims at the 36th national percentile — 2 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Sims's building exposure, zone by zone
Of Sims's 209 counted buildings, 57.9% carry Direct exposure and only 42.1% carry Minimal — a lopsided split that puts defensible-space clearing ahead of vents or roofing as the intervention worth doing first.
Where Sims ranks
Inside North Carolina, Sims sits at just the 13th percentile even though it scores 38th nationally — the state's overall wildfire exposure is high enough to make this a relatively quiet corner of it. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Sims ranks 19,544 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 24,531 by building count (1 is largest). Within North Carolina alone, it ranks 678 of 772 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for North Carolina on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Sims
At the 38th national percentile, Sims rates moderate for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Because Direct exposure dominates in Sims (57.9%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Sims's 38th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Sims, see the exposure-zones guide.