Wakefield, MA
Wakefield, MA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS scores Wakefield at the 26th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range), a figure built from 9,332 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Wakefield at the 23rd national percentile — 3 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Wakefield's building exposure, zone by zone
Wakefield rates 85.3% Minimal exposure against just 4% Direct and 10.8% Indirect — of 9,332 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually. At 9,332 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Wakefield compares
Compare Wakefield's two percentiles: 47th within Massachusetts, only 26th nationally — a gap of 22 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Wakefield ranks 23,385 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,758 by building count (1 is largest). Within Massachusetts alone, it ranks 131 of 248 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Massachusetts on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Wakefield
At the 26th national percentile, Wakefield rates moderate for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
With 85.3% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Wakefield gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
Where Wakefield's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 9,332 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Wakefield. The exposure-zones guide covers what Wakefield's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.