Whaleyville, MD
Whaleyville wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Whaleyville at the 54th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (modestly above the national average for wildfire risk), a figure built from 173 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Whaleyville at the 53rd percentile, close to its 54th-percentile risk score.
Where Whaleyville's buildings actually sit
Of Whaleyville's 173 counted buildings, 82.7% carry Direct exposure and only 0% carry Minimal — a lopsided split that puts defensible-space clearing ahead of vents or roofing as the intervention worth doing first.
Where Whaleyville ranks
Compare Whaleyville's two percentiles: 74th within Maryland, only 54th nationally — a gap of 20 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Whaleyville ranks 14,624 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 25,897 by building count (1 is largest). Within Maryland alone, it ranks 139 of 527 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Maryland on its state page.
Whaleyville and the insurance market
Whaleyville's elevated wildfire rating (54th 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.
What would actually reduce this score
With 82.7% of Whaleyville in Direct exposure, defensible-space clearing and ember-resistant construction (vents, Class-A roofing) address the exposure this page's own numbers describe, not a generic checklist. See the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Whaleyville's 54th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Whaleyville, see the exposure-zones guide.