Upper Arlington, OH
Upper Arlington wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Upper Arlington at the 9th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally), a figure built from 14,986 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Upper Arlington at the 12th percentile, close to its 9th-percentile risk score.
Where Upper Arlington's buildings actually sit
93% of Upper Arlington's 14,986 buildings sit in USFS's Minimal exposure zone, with only 7.1% rated Direct — risk here comes from regional burn probability more than proximity to burnable vegetation at the structure itself. At 14,986 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Upper Arlington against the rest of the country
Within Ohio, Upper Arlington ranks higher (31st percentile) than it does nationally (9th) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Upper Arlington ranks 28,662 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 991 by building count (1 is largest). Within Ohio alone, it ranks 876 of 1,264 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Ohio on its state page.
Upper Arlington and the insurance market
At the 9th national percentile, Upper Arlington rates low for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Even with 93% of Upper Arlington outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones, basic hardening — gutter maintenance, ember-resistant vents — is inexpensive relative to the regional burn-probability risk noted above. Details in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 14,986 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Upper Arlington. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Upper Arlington, see the exposure-zones guide.