Tazewell, VA
Tazewell wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Tazewell at the 85th national percentile for risk to structures, in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a score built from 2,578 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Tazewell at the 87th national percentile — 2 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Tazewell's buildings actually sit
2,578 buildings are counted in Tazewell, and 65.1% of them are Indirect exposure — ember-driven risk rather than the 35% in Direct exposure or the 0% rated Minimal.
Tazewell against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Tazewell's 85th national percentile and its 94th percentile inside Virginia, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Tazewell ranks 4,837 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 6,145 by building count (1 is largest). Within Virginia alone, it ranks 39 of 681 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Virginia on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Tazewell
At the 85th percentile nationally, Tazewell 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
Because 65.1% of Tazewell's buildings sit in the Indirect zone, sealing the ember pathway (vents, roofing, gutters) is the intervention this page's data actually supports — see the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Tazewell's 85th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Tazewell, see the exposure-zones guide.