St. Charles, VA
St. Charles, VA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts St. Charles at the 88th national percentile for risk to structures, in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a score built from 84 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, St. Charles's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 90th percentile nationally.
St. Charles's building exposure, zone by zone
84 buildings are counted in St. Charles, and 66.7% of them sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone — flame contact, not just ember cast, is the live possibility for most of them, against 0% rated Minimal.
St. Charles against the rest of the country
There's little gap between St. Charles's 88th national percentile and its 97th percentile inside Virginia, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, St. Charles ranks 3,764 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 29,746 by building count (1 is largest). Within Virginia alone, it ranks 21 of 681 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Virginia on its state page.
St. Charles and the insurance market
At the 88th percentile nationally, St. Charles carries the very 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
St. Charles's 66.7% 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.
Where St. Charles's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind St. Charles's 3,764-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what St. Charles's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.