Union City, NJ
Union City, NJ's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Union City at the 18th national percentile for risk to structures, among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a score built from 6,857 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Union City at the 20th percentile, close to its 18th-percentile risk score.
Where Union City's buildings actually sit
Most of Union City's buildings (100% of 6,857) fall outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones entirely — that doesn't zero out the score above, it means the risk is regional, not structure-by-structure. At 6,857 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Where Union City ranks
There's little gap between Union City's 18th national percentile and its 4th percentile inside New Jersey, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Union City ranks 25,754 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 2,525 by building count (1 is largest). Within New Jersey alone, it ranks 674 of 700 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for New Jersey on its state page.
Union City and the insurance market
Union City's low wildfire rating (18th 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.
Hardening a home in Union City
With 100% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Union City gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
Where Union City's figures come from
Union City's 18th-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 Union City's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.