South Union, SC
South Union, SC's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
South Union's 279 buildings earn a 67th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — well above the national norm for wildfire risk. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts South Union at the 71st percentile, close to its 67th-percentile risk score.
South Union's building exposure, zone by zone
Direct exposure dominates in South Union: 93.2% of its 279 buildings, versus 6.8% Indirect and 0% Minimal. Clearing space around a structure changes the outcome here more than any single building-material swap.
How South Union compares
Inside South Carolina, South Union sits at just the 45th percentile even though it scores 67th nationally — the state's overall wildfire exposure is high enough to make this a relatively quiet corner of it. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, South Union ranks 10,346 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 22,239 by building count (1 is largest). Within South Carolina alone, it ranks 262 of 474 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for South Carolina on its state page.
South Union and the insurance market
South Union's 67th-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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
South Union's 93.2% Direct-exposure share means lot clearing around the structure typically outweighs any single material upgrade here. The home-hardening guide ranks the options for a place shaped like this.
More on how this number was built
South Union's 67th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond South Union, see the exposure-zones guide.