Tusculum, TN
Tusculum wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Tusculum at the 70th national percentile for risk to structures, well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a score built from 1,257 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Tusculum's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 76th percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
76.9% of Tusculum's 1,257 buildings sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone, roughly 967 structures close enough to burnable vegetation for flame contact, not just embers — 21.5% fall in the Indirect, ember-only zone and 1.6% are Minimal.
Tusculum against the rest of the country
Tusculum scores 70th nationally and 66th within Tennessee — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Tusculum ranks 9,336 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 10,314 by building count (1 is largest). Within Tennessee alone, it ranks 170 of 502 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Tennessee on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Tusculum's 70th-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 Tusculum
Because Direct exposure dominates in Tusculum (76.9%), 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
Tusculum's 70th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Tusculum, see the exposure-zones guide.