Waterbury, VT
Waterbury, VT's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS scores Waterbury at the 13th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally), a figure built from 765 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Waterbury at the 13th percentile, close to its 13th-percentile risk score.
Waterbury's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS puts 73.9% of Waterbury's 765 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 26.1% Direct and 0% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
Waterbury against the rest of the country
Waterbury's risk sits at a similar level relative to Vermont (18th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (13th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Waterbury ranks 27,498 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 13,969 by building count (1 is largest). Within Vermont alone, it ranks 147 of 179 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Vermont on its state page.
Waterbury and the insurance market
Waterbury's low wildfire rating (13th percentile) isn't the kind of score driving the carrier pullback making news in the highest-risk Western markets — but a standard homeowners quote is still worth comparing on its own terms.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Because 73.9% of Waterbury's buildings sit in the Indirect zone, sealing the ember pathway (vents, roofing, gutters) is the intervention this page's data actually supports — see the home-hardening guide.
Where Waterbury's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 765 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Waterbury. The exposure-zones guide covers what Waterbury's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.