Virginia Beach, VA
Virginia Beach wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Virginia Beach at the 79th national percentile for risk to structures, well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a score built from 136,707 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Virginia Beach's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 71st percentile nationally.
Where Virginia Beach's buildings actually sit
Most of Virginia Beach's buildings (57.3% of 136,707) fall outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones entirely — that doesn't zero out the score above, it means the risk is regional, not structure-by-structure. At 136,707 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Virginia Beach compares
There's little gap between Virginia Beach's 79th national percentile and its 92nd percentile inside Virginia, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Virginia Beach ranks 6,667 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 44 by building count (1 is largest). Within Virginia alone, it ranks 56 of 681 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Virginia on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Virginia Beach
At the 79th percentile nationally, Virginia Beach carries the high rating that has pushed some carriers to limit new business in similarly-scored places elsewhere in the country. Worth comparing quotes rather than assuming last year's renewal terms still apply.
Hardening a home in Virginia Beach
Virginia Beach's 57.3% Minimal-exposure share means structure-level hardening matters less here than it would elsewhere — still worth the low-cost basics, per the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Virginia Beach's 79th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Virginia Beach, see the exposure-zones guide.