Tower City, PA
How exposed is Tower City to wildfire?
USFS scores Tower City at the 60th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (well above the national norm for wildfire risk), a figure built from 576 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Tower City's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 57th percentile nationally.
Tower City's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS puts 87.9% of Tower City's 576 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 12.2% Direct and 0% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
How Tower City compares
Within Pennsylvania, Tower City ranks higher (97th percentile) than it does nationally (60th) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Tower City ranks 12,490 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 16,169 by building count (1 is largest). Within Pennsylvania alone, it ranks 67 of 1,991 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Pennsylvania on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Tower City
Tower City's high rating (60th percentile) puts it among the places where the national carrier-pullback trend is most relevant — not a guarantee of a coverage problem, but a reason to shop rather than assume.
Hardening a home in Tower City
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Tower City (87.9% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
Where Tower City's figures come from
Tower City's 60th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Tower City's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.