Arborlook
Risk & Response
by Arborlook Insights

New Hanover County, NC

Community risk profile | NRI Score: 90.6 Very High

235,229
Population
8
Departments
32
Stations
55
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
2.10
expected fatality-equivalents per year, natural hazards only
3rd highest of 100
Life Safety per 100k
0.89
natural hazard fatality-equivalents per 100,000 residents
29th highest of 100
Natural Hazard Property Loss
$228.2M
expected building loss per year, natural hazards only
3rd highest of 100
Property Loss per Resident
$970
natural hazard building loss per resident per year
9th 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 New Hanover County, the largest single contributor is Hurricane, 35% of the life-safety total.

New Hanover County carries an expected 2 natural hazard fatality-equivalents and $228.2M in building loss per year. Rank chips compare the 100 North Carolina counties. Nationally, New Hanover County ranks 269th of 3,222 U.S. counties for life-safety loss, 1919th for life safety per 100k residents, 80th for property loss, and 139th 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 New Hanover 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 New Hanover County See what a department sees

What Drives the Loss

89%
11%
Property (buildings): $228.2M (88.8%)
Life safety: $28.7M (11.2%)
Agriculture: $129K (0.0%)

Total expected annual loss: $257,117,204 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)

Hurricane
$10.2M
Tornado
$5.9M
Lightning
$3.3M
Heat Wave
$2.5M
Cold Wave
$2.2M
Inland Flooding
$2.0M

By property loss ($/yr)

Hurricane
$171.1M
Inland Flooding
$44.0M
Coastal Flooding
$6.2M
Tornado
$3.1M
Earthquake
$1.7M
Ice Storm
$1.1M

Census Tract Risk Map

Shaded by quintile across the census tracts in New Hanover 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

12%
38%
25%
25%
Career: 12% (1)
Combination: 38% (3)
Volunteer: 25% (2)
Unreported: 25% (2)
Residents per Station
7,351
census population per registered station
Stations per 100k
13.6
registered stations per 100,000 residents

Department composition covers the 8 departments registered in NERIS Public for New Hanover 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 New Hanover 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 8 departments
Department Est. Population Life-Safety Loss NRI Rating Stations
Wilmington Fire Department 113,619 $13.5M Very High 10
New Hanover County Fire Rescue 105,700 $13.0M Very High 9
Town of Leland Fire/Rescue Department 54,367 $5.3M Very High 3
Boiling Spring Lakes Fire Rescue 22,284 $2.2M Very High 3
Navassa Volunteer Fire Department 11,045 $1.1M Very High 2
Wrightsville Beach Fire Department 2,776 $604.8K Very High 2
Carolina Beach Fire Department 2,720 $530.5K Very High 2
Kure Beach Fire Department 2,466 $249.1K Very High 1
No departments match your search.

Risk Snapshot

12.3%
Poverty Rate
19.0%
Age 65+
12.1%
Disability Rate
9.6%
Uninsured
30.7%
Pre-1980 Housing
2.7%
Mobile Homes
12.7%
Vacancy Rate
0.1%
Wood Heat
$83,133
Median HH Income

FEMA Disaster Declarations

15
Last 10 Years
24
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