Walpole, MA
Walpole wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Walpole lands at the 31st percentile for wildfire risk to structures — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a figure built from its 2,066 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Walpole at the 25th national percentile — 6 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Walpole's buildings actually sit
82.8% of Walpole's 2,066 buildings sit in USFS's Minimal exposure zone, with only 17.2% rated Direct — risk here comes from regional burn probability more than proximity to burnable vegetation at the structure itself.
How Walpole compares
Walpole's 82nd-percentile standing inside Massachusetts outpaces its 31st national percentile — this is a hotter spot than most of its own state, even though the state as a whole runs cooler nationally. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Walpole ranks 21,682 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 7,296 by building count (1 is largest). Within Massachusetts alone, it ranks 46 of 248 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Massachusetts on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
At the 31st national percentile, Walpole rates moderate for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
Hardening a home in Walpole
With 82.8% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Walpole gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Walpole's 21,682-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Walpole, see the exposure-zones guide.