Weirton, WV
Weirton wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Weirton at the 36th national percentile for risk to structures, close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a score built from 9,802 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Weirton at the 37th percentile, close to its 36th-percentile risk score.
Weirton's building exposure, zone by zone
Most of Weirton's buildings (80.2%) sit in the Indirect zone, where wind-blown embers rather than flame front are the mechanism USFS is scoring — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing are the interventions this pattern favors, more than defensible space alone. At 9,802 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Weirton against the rest of the country
Inside West Virginia, Weirton sits at just the 8th percentile even though it scores 36th nationally — the state's overall wildfire exposure is high enough to make this a relatively quiet corner of it. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Weirton ranks 20,061 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,661 by building count (1 is largest). Within West Virginia alone, it ranks 397 of 429 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for West Virginia on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Weirton's moderate rating (36th percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Weirton's 80.2% 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
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 9,802 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Weirton. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Weirton, see the exposure-zones guide.