Thomasville, NC
Thomasville wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Thomasville lands at the 48th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 12,955 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 Thomasville at the 51st percentile, close to its 48th-percentile risk score.
Where Thomasville's buildings actually sit
USFS classifies 40.4% of Thomasville's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 35.9% Direct and 23.7% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one. At 12,955 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Where Thomasville ranks
Thomasville's risk sits at a similar level relative to North Carolina (34th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (48th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Thomasville ranks 16,301 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,174 by building count (1 is largest). Within North Carolina alone, it ranks 512 of 772 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for North Carolina on its state page.
Thomasville and the insurance market
Thomasville's elevated wildfire rating (48th percentile) isn't the kind of score driving the carrier pullback making news in the highest-risk Western markets — but a standard homeowners quote is still worth comparing on its own terms.
What would actually reduce this score
With 40.4% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Thomasville gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
Where Thomasville's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 12,955 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Thomasville. The exposure-zones guide covers what Thomasville's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.