Varnville, SC
Varnville wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Varnville at the 73rd national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (well above the national norm for wildfire risk), a figure built from 1,247 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Varnville at the 73rd percentile, close to its 73rd-percentile risk score.
Where Varnville's buildings actually sit
USFS puts 54.5% of Varnville's 1,247 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 45.5% Direct and 0% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
Varnville against the rest of the country
Varnville's risk sits at a similar level relative to South Carolina (68th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (73rd) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Varnville ranks 8,516 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 10,364 by building count (1 is largest). Within South Carolina alone, it ranks 152 of 474 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for South Carolina on its state page.
Varnville and the insurance market
Varnville's 73rd-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
Varnville's 54.5% Indirect-exposure share points at embers, not flame contact, as the main pathway — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing rank ahead of defensible space here. Detail in the home-hardening guide.
Where Varnville's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Varnville's 8,516-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Varnville's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.