West Nanticoke, PA
West Nanticoke wildfire risk explained
West Nanticoke's 479 buildings earn a 60th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — well above the national norm for wildfire risk. (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 Nanticoke at the 59th percentile, close to its 60th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
USFS puts 58% of West Nanticoke's 479 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 42% Direct and 0% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
How West Nanticoke compares
Compare West Nanticoke's two percentiles: 96th within Pennsylvania, only 60th nationally — a gap of 36 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, West Nanticoke ranks 12,586 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 17,734 by building count (1 is largest). Within Pennsylvania alone, it ranks 74 of 1,991 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Pennsylvania on its state page.
West Nanticoke and the insurance market
West Nanticoke's high rating (60th percentile) puts it among the places where the national carrier-pullback trend is most relevant — not a guarantee of a coverage problem, but a reason to shop rather than assume.
What would actually reduce this score
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in West Nanticoke (58% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind West Nanticoke's 12,586-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond West Nanticoke, see the exposure-zones guide.