Waldo, AL
Waldo wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Waldo lands at the 81st percentile for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a figure built from its 132 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Waldo at the 84th national percentile — 3 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Waldo's building exposure, zone by zone
132 buildings are counted in Waldo, and 100% of them sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone — flame contact, not just ember cast, is the live possibility for most of them, against 0% rated Minimal.
Waldo against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Waldo's 81st national percentile and its 78th percentile inside Alabama, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Waldo ranks 6,040 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 27,606 by building count (1 is largest). Within Alabama alone, it ranks 134 of 592 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Alabama on its state page.
Waldo and the insurance market
Waldo's 81st-percentile, very 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
With 100% of Waldo in Direct exposure, defensible-space clearing and ember-resistant construction (vents, Class-A roofing) address the exposure this page's own numbers describe, not a generic checklist. See the home-hardening guide.
Where Waldo's figures come from
Waldo's 81st-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Waldo's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.