Westlake, OH
Westlake wildfire risk explained
Westlake sits at the 24th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 12,107 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Westlake at the 26th percentile, close to its 24th-percentile risk score.
Where Westlake's buildings actually sit
72.6% of Westlake's 12,107 buildings sit in USFS's Minimal exposure zone, with only 27.4% rated Direct — risk here comes from regional burn probability more than proximity to burnable vegetation at the structure itself. At 12,107 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Westlake against the rest of the country
Compare Westlake's two percentiles: 57th within Ohio, only 24th nationally — a gap of 32 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Westlake ranks 23,896 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,287 by building count (1 is largest). Within Ohio alone, it ranks 549 of 1,264 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Ohio on its state page.
Westlake and the insurance market
Westlake's moderate rating (24th 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
With 72.6% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Westlake gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
Where Westlake's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Westlake's 23,896-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Westlake's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.