Wilmington, DE
How exposed is Wilmington to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Wilmington at the 41st national percentile for risk to structures, modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — a score built from 11,258 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Wilmington's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 40th percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
97.3% of Wilmington's 11,258 buildings sit in USFS's Minimal exposure zone, with only 2.7% rated Direct — risk here comes from regional burn probability more than proximity to burnable vegetation at the structure itself. At 11,258 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Wilmington compares
Wilmington scores 41st nationally and 55th within Delaware — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Wilmington ranks 18,678 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,406 by building count (1 is largest). Within Delaware alone, it ranks 36 of 79 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Delaware on its state page.
Wilmington and the insurance market
Wilmington's elevated wildfire rating (41st 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 Wilmington
Even with 97.3% of Wilmington 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.
More on how this number was built
Wilmington's 41st-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Wilmington, see the exposure-zones guide.