Wilson, NC
Wilson wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Wilson lands at the 40th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a figure built from its 20,808 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Wilson at the 39th percentile, close to its 40th-percentile risk score.
Wilson's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS puts 34.3% of Wilson's 20,808 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 33.8% Direct and 31.9% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to. At 20,808 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Wilson compares
Wilson ranks lower within North Carolina (16th percentile statewide) than its 40th national percentile suggests alone — a calmer spot in a state where wildfire risk generally runs high. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Wilson ranks 18,915 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 675 by building count (1 is largest). Within North Carolina alone, it ranks 652 of 772 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for North Carolina on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Wilson's moderate wildfire rating (40th 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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Because 34.3% of Wilson'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.
More on how this number was built
Wilson's 40th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Wilson, see the exposure-zones guide.