South Pittsburg, TN
South Pittsburg wildfire risk explained
USFS scores South Pittsburg at the 78th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (well above the national norm for wildfire risk), a figure built from 1,873 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks South Pittsburg at the 82nd national percentile — 3 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
USFS puts 74.4% of South Pittsburg's 1,873 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 25.5% Direct and 0.1% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
Where South Pittsburg ranks
There's little gap between South Pittsburg's 78th national percentile and its 83rd percentile inside Tennessee, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, South Pittsburg ranks 6,813 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 7,840 by building count (1 is largest). Within Tennessee alone, it ranks 83 of 502 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Tennessee on its state page.
South Pittsburg and the insurance market
At the 78th percentile nationally, South Pittsburg carries the high rating that has pushed some carriers to limit new business in similarly-scored places elsewhere in the country. Worth comparing quotes rather than assuming last year's renewal terms still apply.
What would actually reduce this score
Because 74.4% of South Pittsburg's buildings sit in the Indirect zone, sealing the ember pathway (vents, roofing, gutters) is the intervention this page's data actually supports — see the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 1,873 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for South Pittsburg. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond South Pittsburg, see the exposure-zones guide.