Alta Vista, IA
Alta Vista wildfire risk explained
Alta Vista's 224 buildings earn a 20th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Alta Vista at the 19th national percentile — 1 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Alta Vista rates 79.5% Minimal exposure against just 20.5% Direct and 0% Indirect — of 224 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually.
Alta Vista against the rest of the country
Alta Vista's risk sits at a similar level relative to Iowa (32nd percentile statewide) as it does nationally (20th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Alta Vista ranks 25,335 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 23,979 by building count (1 is largest). Within Iowa alone, it ranks 692 of 1,017 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Iowa on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Alta Vista's low wildfire rating (20th 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.
Hardening a home in Alta Vista
Alta Vista's 79.5% Minimal-exposure share means structure-level hardening matters less here than it would elsewhere — still worth the low-cost basics, per the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Alta Vista's 20th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Alta Vista, see the exposure-zones guide.