Walden, TN
Walden, TN's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Out of every US place USFS scores, Walden lands at the 78th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 1,045 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Walden at the 81st percentile, close to its 78th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
USFS classifies 96.4% of Walden's buildings as Direct exposure, higher than its 3.6% Indirect share and far above its 0% Minimal share — a profile where 1,007 structures sit close enough to vegetation that lot clearing matters most.
Where Walden ranks
There's little gap between Walden's 78th national percentile and its 84th percentile inside Tennessee, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Walden ranks 6,815 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 11,628 by building count (1 is largest). Within Tennessee alone, it ranks 85 of 502 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Tennessee on its state page.
Walden and the insurance market
Walden's 78th-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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Because Direct exposure dominates in Walden (96.4%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Walden's 78th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Walden, see the exposure-zones guide.