Slaughter Beach, DE
Slaughter Beach, DE's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS scores Slaughter Beach at the 80th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (well above the national norm for wildfire risk), a figure built from 342 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Slaughter Beach at the 71st percentile, close to its 80th-percentile risk score.
Slaughter Beach's building exposure, zone by zone
Direct exposure dominates in Slaughter Beach: 84.8% of its 342 buildings, versus 9.4% Indirect and 5.9% Minimal. Clearing space around a structure changes the outcome here more than any single building-material swap.
Slaughter Beach against the rest of the country
Slaughter Beach's 100th-percentile standing inside Delaware outpaces its 80th national percentile — this is a hotter spot than most of its own state, even though the state as a whole runs cooler nationally. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Slaughter Beach ranks 6,455 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 20,506 by building count (1 is largest). Within Delaware alone, it ranks 1 of 79 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Delaware on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Slaughter Beach
Slaughter Beach's 80th-percentile, 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.
Hardening a home in Slaughter Beach
Because Direct exposure dominates in Slaughter Beach (84.8%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
Where Slaughter Beach's figures come from
Slaughter Beach's 80th-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 Slaughter Beach's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.