Sylvan Hills, PA
Sylvan Hills wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Sylvan Hills lands at the 36th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a figure built from its 407 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Sylvan Hills at the 35th percentile, close to its 36th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Only 23.8% of Sylvan Hills's 407 buildings carry Direct exposure and 26.5% carry Indirect; the remaining 49.6% are Minimal, which shifts the risk driving this page's score toward the surrounding landscape rather than any one structure.
Sylvan Hills against the rest of the country
Compare Sylvan Hills's two percentiles: 52nd within Pennsylvania, only 36th nationally — a gap of 16 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Sylvan Hills ranks 20,278 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 19,092 by building count (1 is largest). Within Pennsylvania alone, it ranks 968 of 1,991 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Pennsylvania on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
At the 36th national percentile, Sylvan Hills rates moderate for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
Hardening a home in Sylvan Hills
With 49.6% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Sylvan Hills gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
More on how this number was built
Sylvan Hills's 36th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Sylvan Hills, see the exposure-zones guide.