Skidaway Island, GA
Skidaway Island wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Skidaway Island at the 89th national percentile for risk to structures, in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a score built from 4,792 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Skidaway Island at the 82nd national percentile — 7 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
USFS classifies 98% of Skidaway Island's buildings as Direct exposure, higher than its 1.7% Indirect share and far above its 0.4% Minimal share — a profile where 4,694 structures sit close enough to vegetation that lot clearing matters most.
Where Skidaway Island ranks
There's little gap between Skidaway Island's 89th national percentile and its 98th percentile inside Georgia, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Skidaway Island ranks 3,585 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 3,560 by building count (1 is largest). Within Georgia alone, it ranks 16 of 669 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Georgia on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Skidaway Island's 89th-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
With 98% of Skidaway Island in Direct exposure, defensible-space clearing and ember-resistant construction (vents, Class-A roofing) address the exposure this page's own numbers describe, not a generic checklist. See the home-hardening guide.
Where Skidaway Island's figures come from
Skidaway Island's 89th-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 Skidaway Island's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.