Waterbury, CT
Waterbury, CT's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS scores Waterbury at the 37th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range), a figure built from 30,213 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Waterbury's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 35th percentile nationally.
Where Waterbury's buildings actually sit
Only 10.1% of Waterbury's 30,213 buildings carry Direct exposure and 39.7% carry Indirect; the remaining 50.2% are Minimal, which shifts the risk driving this page's score toward the surrounding landscape rather than any one structure. At 30,213 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Waterbury compares
Waterbury's 69th-percentile standing inside Connecticut outpaces its 37th 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, Waterbury ranks 19,753 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 379 by building count (1 is largest). Within Connecticut alone, it ranks 67 of 214 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Connecticut on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Waterbury
At the 37th national percentile, Waterbury 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
Waterbury's 50.2% 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.
Where Waterbury's figures come from
Waterbury's 37th-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 Waterbury's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.