Utica, NY
Utica, NY's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS scores Utica at the 5th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally), a figure built from 18,992 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Utica at the 5th national percentile — 0 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
65.4% of Utica's 18,992 buildings sit in USFS's Minimal exposure zone, with only 9.2% rated Direct — risk here comes from regional burn probability more than proximity to burnable vegetation at the structure itself. At 18,992 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Utica compares
Utica scores 5th nationally and 5th within New York — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Utica ranks 29,956 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 748 by building count (1 is largest). Within New York alone, it ranks 1,228 of 1,289 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for New York on its state page.
Utica and the insurance market
Utica's low rating (5th 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
Utica's 65.4% 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 Utica's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Utica's 29,956-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Utica's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.