West Van Lear, KY
West Van Lear, KY's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts West Van Lear at the 89th national percentile for risk to structures, in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a score built from 519 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks West Van Lear at the 92nd national percentile — 3 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where West Van Lear's buildings actually sit
70.7% of West Van Lear's 519 buildings fall in USFS's Indirect exposure zone — ember cast rather than direct flame — against 29.3% Direct and 0% Minimal. Vent screens and roofing material matter more here than lot clearing alone.
West Van Lear against the rest of the country
There's little gap between West Van Lear's 89th national percentile and its 90th percentile inside Kentucky, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, West Van Lear ranks 3,403 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 17,040 by building count (1 is largest). Within Kentucky alone, it ranks 60 of 552 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Kentucky on its state page.
West Van Lear and the insurance market
At the 89th percentile nationally, West Van Lear carries the very high rating that has pushed some carriers to limit new business in similarly-scored places elsewhere in the country. Worth comparing quotes rather than assuming last year's renewal terms still apply.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Because 70.7% of West Van Lear'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.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind West Van Lear's 3,403-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 Van Lear, see the exposure-zones guide.