Talladega, AL
Talladega wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Talladega at the 80th national percentile for risk to structures, well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a score built from 7,545 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Talladega at the 83rd national percentile — 3 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Talladega's buildings actually sit
7,545 buildings are counted in Talladega, and 56.9% of them sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone — flame contact, not just ember cast, is the live possibility for most of them, against 1.7% rated Minimal. At 7,545 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Talladega against the rest of the country
Talladega scores 80th nationally and 75th within Alabama — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Talladega ranks 6,322 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 2,268 by building count (1 is largest). Within Alabama alone, it ranks 151 of 592 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Alabama on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Talladega's 80th-percentile, high rating is the kind of score behind a broader national pattern: insurers pulling back from the highest wildfire-risk markets, non-renewing or declining new policies outright, most visibly in California. Shopping around, not assuming automatic renewal, tends to matter here.
Hardening a home in Talladega
Because Direct exposure dominates in Talladega (56.9%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 7,545 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Talladega. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Talladega, see the exposure-zones guide.