Wilkes-Barre, PA
Wilkes-Barre wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Wilkes-Barre at the 42nd national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (modestly above the national average for wildfire risk), a figure built from 14,880 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Wilkes-Barre at the 41st national percentile — 2 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Wilkes-Barre's building exposure, zone by zone
Wilkes-Barre rates 80.3% Minimal exposure against just 0.4% Direct and 19.2% Indirect — of 14,880 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually. At 14,880 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Where Wilkes-Barre ranks
Within Pennsylvania, Wilkes-Barre ranks higher (68th percentile) than it does nationally (42nd) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Wilkes-Barre ranks 18,234 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,000 by building count (1 is largest). Within Pennsylvania alone, it ranks 649 of 1,991 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Pennsylvania on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Wilkes-Barre's elevated rating (42nd percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
Hardening a home in Wilkes-Barre
Even with 80.3% of Wilkes-Barre outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones, basic hardening — gutter maintenance, ember-resistant vents — is inexpensive relative to the regional burn-probability risk noted above. Details in the home-hardening guide.
Where Wilkes-Barre's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Wilkes-Barre's 18,234-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Wilkes-Barre's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.