WildfireRiskFinder

Snow Shoe, PA

Snow Shoe wildfire risk explained

Elevated
55thpercentile nationally

Out of every US place USFS scores, Snow Shoe lands at the 55th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 470 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)

Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Snow Shoe at the 54th national percentile — 1 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.

Where Snow Shoe's buildings actually sit

470Total buildings
46.8%Direct exposure
53.2%Indirect exposure
0%Minimal exposure

Most of Snow Shoe's buildings (53.2%) 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 Snow Shoe compares

Snow Shoe's 91st-percentile standing inside Pennsylvania outpaces its 55th 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, Snow Shoe ranks 14,069 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 17,879 by building count (1 is largest). Within Pennsylvania alone, it ranks 173 of 1,991 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Pennsylvania on its state page.

Shopping for coverage in Snow Shoe

At the 55th national percentile, Snow Shoe rates elevated for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.

What would actually reduce this score

Snow Shoe's 53.2% Indirect-exposure share points at embers, not flame contact, as the main pathway — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing rank ahead of defensible space here. Detail in the home-hardening guide.

More on how this number was built

The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 470 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Snow Shoe. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Snow Shoe, see the exposure-zones guide.