Sylvester, GA
How exposed is Sylvester to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Sylvester lands at the 63rd percentile for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 2,671 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 Sylvester at the 62nd percentile, close to its 63rd-percentile risk score.
Where Sylvester's buildings actually sit
2,671 buildings are counted in Sylvester, and 39.7% of them are Indirect exposure — ember-driven risk rather than the 39.4% in Direct exposure or the 20.9% rated Minimal.
How Sylvester compares
Inside Georgia, Sylvester sits at just the 29th percentile even though it scores 63rd 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, Sylvester ranks 11,812 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 5,977 by building count (1 is largest). Within Georgia alone, it ranks 474 of 669 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Georgia on its state page.
Sylvester and the insurance market
At the 63rd percentile nationally, Sylvester 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.
Hardening a home in Sylvester
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Sylvester (39.7% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
Where Sylvester's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Sylvester's 11,812-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Sylvester's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.