Southbridge Town, MA
Southbridge Town, MA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Southbridge Town sits at the 27th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 5,863 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Southbridge Town's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 25th percentile nationally.
Southbridge Town's building exposure, zone by zone
Most of Southbridge Town's buildings (61%) 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. At 5,863 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Southbridge Town compares
Within Massachusetts, Southbridge Town ranks higher (59th percentile) than it does nationally (27th) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Southbridge Town ranks 23,002 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 2,936 by building count (1 is largest). Within Massachusetts alone, it ranks 103 of 248 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Massachusetts on its state page.
Southbridge Town and the insurance market
Southbridge Town's moderate rating (27th percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
Hardening a home in Southbridge Town
Southbridge Town's 61% 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
Southbridge Town's 27th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Southbridge Town, see the exposure-zones guide.