Sweetwater, TN
How exposed is Sweetwater to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Sweetwater at the 72nd national percentile for risk to structures, well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a score built from 3,578 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Sweetwater at the 77th national percentile — 5 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Sweetwater's building exposure, zone by zone
Indirect exposure is dominant in Sweetwater (60.8% of 3,578 buildings): far enough from burnable vegetation to avoid flame contact, close enough for wind-blown embers. Only 39.2% sit in the Direct zone.
Sweetwater against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Sweetwater's 72nd national percentile and its 70th percentile inside Tennessee, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Sweetwater ranks 8,865 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 4,682 by building count (1 is largest). Within Tennessee alone, it ranks 149 of 502 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Tennessee on its state page.
Sweetwater and the insurance market
At the 72nd percentile nationally, Sweetwater 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
Sweetwater's 60.8% 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.
Where Sweetwater's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Sweetwater's 8,865-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Sweetwater's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.