Valdosta, GA
Valdosta, GA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Out of every US place USFS scores, Valdosta lands at the 67th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 20,388 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Valdosta at the 67th percentile, close to its 67th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Of Valdosta's 20,388 counted buildings, 44.9% carry Direct exposure and only 24.1% carry Minimal — a lopsided split that puts defensible-space clearing ahead of vents or roofing as the intervention worth doing first. At 20,388 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Valdosta against the rest of the country
Valdosta scores 67th nationally and 55th within Georgia — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Valdosta ranks 10,298 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 690 by building count (1 is largest). Within Georgia alone, it ranks 302 of 669 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Georgia on its state page.
Valdosta and the insurance market
Valdosta's high rating (67th percentile) puts it among the places where the national carrier-pullback trend is most relevant — not a guarantee of a coverage problem, but a reason to shop rather than assume.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Valdosta's 44.9% Direct-exposure share means lot clearing around the structure typically outweighs any single material upgrade here. The home-hardening guide ranks the options for a place shaped like this.
Where Valdosta's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Valdosta's 10,298-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Valdosta's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.