Wharton, TX
Wharton wildfire risk explained
Wharton sits at the 66th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 3,920 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 Wharton at the 69th percentile, close to its 66th-percentile risk score.
Wharton's building exposure, zone by zone
Indirect exposure is dominant in Wharton (78.2% of 3,920 buildings): far enough from burnable vegetation to avoid flame contact, close enough for wind-blown embers. Only 21.8% sit in the Direct zone.
How Wharton compares
Wharton's 66th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 23rd ranking inside Texas does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 43 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Wharton ranks 10,635 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 4,316 by building count (1 is largest). Within Texas alone, it ranks 1,376 of 1,795 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Texas on its state page.
Wharton and the insurance market
Wharton's 66th-percentile, high rating is the kind of score behind a broader national pattern: insurers pulling back from the highest wildfire-risk markets, non-renewing or declining new policies outright, most visibly in California. Shopping around, not assuming automatic renewal, tends to matter here.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Because 78.2% of Wharton'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.
Where Wharton's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Wharton's 10,635-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Wharton's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.