Upper Montclair, NJ
How exposed is Upper Montclair to wildfire?
Upper Montclair sits at the 26th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 4,143 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (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 Montclair at the 27th percentile, close to its 26th-percentile risk score.
Where Upper Montclair's buildings actually sit
51.3% of Upper Montclair's 4,143 buildings sit in USFS's Minimal exposure zone, with only 48.7% rated Direct — risk here comes from regional burn probability more than proximity to burnable vegetation at the structure itself.
How Upper Montclair compares
Upper Montclair's risk sits at a similar level relative to New Jersey (19th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (26th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Upper Montclair ranks 23,237 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 4,106 by building count (1 is largest). Within New Jersey alone, it ranks 571 of 700 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for New Jersey on its state page.
Upper Montclair and the insurance market
Upper Montclair's moderate rating (26th percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
What would actually reduce this score
Upper Montclair's 51.3% Minimal-exposure share means structure-level hardening matters less here than it would elsewhere — still worth the low-cost basics, per the home-hardening guide.
Where Upper Montclair's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Upper Montclair's 23,237-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Upper Montclair's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.