Arborlook
Risk & Response
by Arborlook Insights

Chatham County, NC

Community risk profile | NRI Score: 53.9 Relatively Moderate

80,151
Population
12
Departments
78
Stations
19
Census Tracts

Natural Hazard Loss Profile

Expected annual loss across the 18 natural hazards in FEMA's National Risk Index. Life safety is expressed in fatality-equivalents, combining expected deaths and injuries. Property loss counts building damage only, separate from agriculture.

Natural Hazard Life Safety
0.32
expected fatality-equivalents per year, natural hazards only
50th highest of 100
Life Safety per 100k
0.40
natural hazard fatality-equivalents per 100,000 residents
79th highest of 100
Natural Hazard Property Loss
$19.3M
expected building loss per year, natural hazards only
46th highest of 100
Property Loss per Resident
$241
natural hazard building loss per resident per year
68th highest of 100

These figures cover natural hazards only. Structure fire, EMS, and motor vehicle incidents are not included in the National Risk Index and are not counted here, so this is not an all-cause life safety measure. For Chatham County, the largest single contributor is Tornado, 42% of the life-safety total.

Chatham County carries an expected under 1 natural hazard fatality-equivalents and $19.3M in building loss per year. Rank chips compare the 100 North Carolina counties. Nationally, Chatham County ranks 1463rd of 3,222 U.S. counties for life-safety loss, 2766th for life safety per 100k residents, 921st for property loss, and 2398th for property loss per resident. Computed from census tract data covering every resident, independent of fire department boundaries.

Add fire mortality, cause, and loss

Natural hazard exposure is one half of the picture. The other half is what your departments run on: fire deaths and injuries, cause of ignition, dollar loss per incident. That comes from NERIS incident reporting, and it grows as departments serving Chatham County enroll. Our Regional tier brings it together across your jurisdiction, with participating departments, alongside response time analytics, cross-department benchmarking, and coverage gap analysis.

Talk to us about Chatham County See what a department sees

What Drives the Loss

78%
18%
Property (buildings): $19.3M (77.7%)
Life safety: $4.4M (17.6%)
Agriculture: $1.2M (4.7%)

Total expected annual loss: $24,822,341 per year. Life safety is shown here in dollars, at FEMA's $13.7M value of statistical life, so the three shares sum to the total.

Hazards Ranked Two Ways

The hazard that threatens people is often not the hazard that destroys buildings. Both columns cover the same 18 hazards over the same year.

By life-safety loss ($/yr)

Tornado
$1.8M
Heat Wave
$960K
Cold Wave
$815K
Lightning
$264K
Strong Wind
$184K
Hurricane
$98K

By property loss ($/yr)

Inland Flooding
$14.8M
Hurricane
$2.1M
Tornado
$1.2M
Hail
$382K
Earthquake
$369K
Ice Storm
$207K

Census Tract Risk Map

Shaded by quintile across the census tracts in Chatham County. Gray tracts have no modeled loss or no resident population. Per-resident figures on this map use the National Risk Index 2020 tract population.

Fire Service Profile

25%
50%
8%
17%
Career: 25% (3)
Combination: 50% (6)
Volunteer: 8% (1)
Unreported: 17% (2)
Residents per Station
1,028
census population per registered station
Stations per 100k
97.3
registered stations per 100,000 residents

Department composition covers the 12 departments registered in NERIS Public for Chatham County, NC. Departments that have not registered are not counted. Station coverage divides census population by registered stations; department service areas overlap, so their populations are not summed.

Department Rankings

Fire and EMS departments serving Chatham County. Click column headers to sort.

NRI Rating is from FEMA's National Risk Index, which measures community risk across 18 natural hazards using expected annual losses, social vulnerability, and community resilience. Life-Safety Loss uses FEMA's Value of Statistical Life ($13.7M per expected fatality) to estimate annual risk to human life.

Department boundaries and station counts are self-reported through NERIS Public and may not reflect current service areas. Population and Life-Safety Loss reflect each department's full jurisdiction. County-level risk metrics are computed from census tract data and are not affected by boundary accuracy. See full methodology.

Showing 12 departments
Department Est. Population Life-Safety Loss NRI Rating Stations
Durham Fire Department 304,928 $17.1M Relatively Moderate 33
Cary Fire Department 159,274 $5.4M Relatively Moderate 19
North Chatham Volunteer Fire Department, Inc. 52,497 $2.8M Relatively Moderate 7
Apex Fire Department 79,671 $2.4M Relatively Low 6
Pittsboro Volunteer Fire and Rescue Department Inc. 25,577 $1.4M Relatively Moderate 3
Staley Volunteer Fire Department, Inc. 23,012 $1.2M Relatively Moderate 2
Northview Fire Department 17,684 $1.1M Relatively High 2
Siler City Fire Department 19,882 $1.1M Relatively Moderate 1
Bonlee Fire Department 14,084 $806.3K Relatively Moderate 1
Moncure Volunteer Fire Department, Inc. 12,327 $686.9K Relatively Moderate 1
Silk Hope Volunteer Fire Department, Inc. 12,501 $651.8K Relatively Low 2
Bennett Volunteer Fire Department 11,185 $589.6K Relatively Moderate 1
No departments match your search.

Risk Snapshot

11.0%
Poverty Rate
25.2%
Age 65+
11.3%
Disability Rate
9.4%
Uninsured
23.7%
Pre-1980 Housing
11.9%
Mobile Homes
8.1%
Vacancy Rate
2.4%
Wood Heat
$100,680
Median HH Income

FEMA Disaster Declarations

14
Last 10 Years
16
Last 25 Years
Hurricane
Most Frequent

Response-level intelligence for your region

Our Regional tier gives county fire authorities and state fire marshals rollup dashboards across all departments in your jurisdiction: response time analytics, cross-department benchmarking, and coverage gap analysis.

Explore the Regional Tier See the Response Demo