West Berlin, NJ
How exposed is West Berlin to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, West Berlin lands at the 65th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 1,191 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts West Berlin at the 63rd percentile, close to its 65th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Only 20.7% of West Berlin's 1,191 buildings carry Direct exposure and 30.1% carry Indirect; the remaining 49.3% are Minimal, which shifts the risk driving this page's score toward the surrounding landscape rather than any one structure.
How West Berlin compares
West Berlin's risk sits at a similar level relative to New Jersey (74th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (65th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, West Berlin ranks 11,067 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 10,703 by building count (1 is largest). Within New Jersey alone, it ranks 184 of 700 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for New Jersey on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in West Berlin
West Berlin's 65th-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.
Hardening a home in West Berlin
West Berlin's 49.3% 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 West Berlin's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind West Berlin's 11,067-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what West Berlin's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.