Varnell, GA
Varnell, GA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Varnell at the 71st national percentile for risk to structures, well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a score built from 915 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Varnell at the 75th percentile, close to its 71st-percentile risk score.
Where Varnell's buildings actually sit
Of Varnell's 915 counted buildings, 77.3% 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.
Where Varnell ranks
Varnell scores 71st nationally and 69th 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, Varnell ranks 9,046 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 12,591 by building count (1 is largest). Within Georgia alone, it ranks 209 of 669 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Georgia on its state page.
Varnell and the insurance market
Varnell's 71st-percentile, 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.
What would actually reduce this score
Because Direct exposure dominates in Varnell (77.3%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
Where Varnell's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Varnell's 9,046-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Varnell's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.