Westphalia, MD
How exposed is Westphalia to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Westphalia lands at the 33rd percentile for wildfire risk to structures — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a figure built from its 3,934 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Westphalia's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 32nd percentile nationally.
Westphalia's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS puts 53.1% of Westphalia's 3,934 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 46% Direct and 0.8% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
How Westphalia compares
Within Maryland, Westphalia ranks higher (51st percentile) than it does nationally (33rd) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Westphalia ranks 21,270 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 4,303 by building count (1 is largest). Within Maryland alone, it ranks 260 of 527 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Maryland on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Westphalia
Westphalia's moderate wildfire rating (33rd percentile) isn't the kind of score driving the carrier pullback making news in the highest-risk Western markets — but a standard homeowners quote is still worth comparing on its own terms.
Hardening a home in Westphalia
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Westphalia (53.1% 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 Westphalia's 21,270-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Westphalia, see the exposure-zones guide.