Valley Head, AL
Valley Head wildfire risk explained
Valley Head's 390 buildings earn a 82nd-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Valley Head at the 85th percentile, close to its 82nd-percentile risk score.
Valley Head's building exposure, zone by zone
Direct exposure dominates in Valley Head: 80.5% of its 390 buildings, versus 19.5% Indirect and 0% Minimal. Clearing space around a structure changes the outcome here more than any single building-material swap.
How Valley Head compares
Valley Head's risk sits at a similar level relative to Alabama (82nd percentile statewide) as it does nationally (82nd) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Valley Head ranks 5,693 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 19,403 by building count (1 is largest). Within Alabama alone, it ranks 111 of 592 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Alabama on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Valley Head
Valley Head's 82nd-percentile, very high rating is the kind of score behind a broader national pattern: insurers pulling back from the highest wildfire-risk markets, non-renewing or declining new policies outright, most visibly in California. Shopping around, not assuming automatic renewal, tends to matter here.
Hardening a home in Valley Head
With 80.5% of Valley Head in Direct exposure, defensible-space clearing and ember-resistant construction (vents, Class-A roofing) address the exposure this page's own numbers describe, not a generic checklist. See the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Valley Head's 82nd-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Valley Head, see the exposure-zones guide.