Waycross, GA
Waycross, GA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Out of every US place USFS scores, Waycross lands at the 72nd percentile for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 7,027 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Waycross's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 72nd percentile nationally.
Where Waycross's buildings actually sit
USFS puts 44.4% of Waycross's 7,027 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 24% Direct and 31.6% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to. At 7,027 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Waycross compares
Waycross scores 72nd nationally and 73rd within Georgia — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Waycross ranks 8,763 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 2,441 by building count (1 is largest). Within Georgia alone, it ranks 183 of 669 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Georgia on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Waycross
Waycross's 72nd-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
Waycross's 44.4% Indirect-exposure share points at embers, not flame contact, as the main pathway — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing rank ahead of defensible space here. Detail in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Waycross's 72nd-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Waycross, see the exposure-zones guide.