Winchester, KY
How exposed is Winchester to wildfire?
USFS scores Winchester at the 40th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range), a figure built from 8,134 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Winchester's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 43rd percentile nationally.
Where Winchester's buildings actually sit
8,134 buildings are counted in Winchester, and 90.1% of them are Indirect exposure — ember-driven risk rather than the 8.7% in Direct exposure or the 1.2% rated Minimal. At 8,134 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Winchester compares
Compare Winchester's two percentiles: 68th within Kentucky, only 40th nationally — a gap of 28 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Winchester ranks 18,936 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 2,063 by building count (1 is largest). Within Kentucky alone, it ranks 179 of 552 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Kentucky on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Winchester
At the 40th national percentile, Winchester rates moderate for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
Hardening a home in Winchester
Because 90.1% of Winchester'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 Winchester's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Winchester's 18,936-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Winchester's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.