Williamstown, NJ
How exposed is Williamstown to wildfire?
USFS scores Williamstown at the 73rd national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (well above the national norm for wildfire risk), a figure built from 5,556 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Williamstown's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 71st percentile nationally.
Williamstown's building exposure, zone by zone
5,556 buildings are counted in Williamstown, and 38.4% of them sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone — flame contact, not just ember cast, is the live possibility for most of them, against 35.5% rated Minimal. At 5,556 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Williamstown compares
Williamstown's risk sits at a similar level relative to New Jersey (81st percentile statewide) as it does nationally (73rd) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Williamstown ranks 8,613 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 3,101 by building count (1 is largest). Within New Jersey alone, it ranks 135 of 700 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for New Jersey on its state page.
Williamstown and the insurance market
Williamstown's 73rd-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.
Hardening a home in Williamstown
Williamstown's 38.4% Direct-exposure share means lot clearing around the structure typically outweighs any single material upgrade here. The home-hardening guide ranks the options for a place shaped like this.
Where Williamstown's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 5,556 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Williamstown. The exposure-zones guide covers what Williamstown's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.