Valley Springs, AR
Valley Springs wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Valley Springs at the 82nd national percentile for risk to structures, in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a score built from 149 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Valley Springs at the 85th national percentile — 3 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Valley Springs's building exposure, zone by zone
Of Valley Springs's 149 counted buildings, 71.1% carry Direct exposure and only 0% carry Minimal — a lopsided split that puts defensible-space clearing ahead of vents or roofing as the intervention worth doing first.
Valley Springs against the rest of the country
Valley Springs's risk sits at a similar level relative to Arkansas (87th 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 Springs ranks 5,662 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 26,903 by building count (1 is largest). Within Arkansas alone, it ranks 81 of 614 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Arkansas on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Valley Springs'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 Springs
Because Direct exposure dominates in Valley Springs (71.1%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
Where Valley Springs's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 149 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Valley Springs. The exposure-zones guide covers what Valley Springs's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.