Winchester, VA
Winchester wildfire risk explained
Winchester sits at the 43rd percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 9,835 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Winchester at the 44th percentile, close to its 43rd-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Only 9.1% of Winchester's 9,835 buildings carry Direct exposure and 21.8% carry Indirect; the remaining 69.1% are Minimal, which shifts the risk driving this page's score toward the surrounding landscape rather than any one structure. At 9,835 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Winchester against the rest of the country
Winchester's risk sits at a similar level relative to Virginia (39th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (43rd) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Winchester ranks 17,918 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,646 by building count (1 is largest). Within Virginia alone, it ranks 418 of 681 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Virginia on its state page.
Winchester and the insurance market
Winchester's elevated rating (43rd 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 Winchester
Even with 69.1% of Winchester 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 Winchester's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 9,835 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Winchester. The exposure-zones guide covers what Winchester's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.