South Portland, ME
How exposed is South Portland to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, South Portland lands at the 14th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a figure built from its 10,705 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks South Portland at the 14th national percentile — 0 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
South Portland's building exposure, zone by zone
55.9% of South Portland's 10,705 buildings fall in USFS's Indirect exposure zone — ember cast rather than direct flame — against 9.1% Direct and 35.1% Minimal. Vent screens and roofing material matter more here than lot clearing alone. At 10,705 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
South Portland against the rest of the country
South Portland's 68th-percentile standing inside Maine outpaces its 14th 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, South Portland ranks 27,165 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,483 by building count (1 is largest). Within Maine alone, it ranks 51 of 155 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Maine on its state page.
South Portland and the insurance market
South Portland's low wildfire rating (14th percentile) isn't the kind of score driving the carrier pullback making news in the highest-risk Western markets — but a standard homeowners quote is still worth comparing on its own terms.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in South Portland (55.9% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
Where South Portland's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind South Portland's 27,165-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what South Portland's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.