Ashland, KS
Ashland wildfire risk explained
Ashland sits at the 97th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 812 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Ashland's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 98th percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
79.3% of Ashland's 812 buildings fall in USFS's Indirect exposure zone — ember cast rather than direct flame — against 20.7% Direct and 0% Minimal. Vent screens and roofing material matter more here than lot clearing alone.
How Ashland compares
Ashland's risk sits at a similar level relative to Kansas (98th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (97th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Ashland ranks 1,036 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 13,534 by building count (1 is largest). Within Kansas alone, it ranks 16 of 721 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Kansas on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Ashland's 97th-percentile, very high rating is the kind of score behind a broader national pattern: insurers pulling back from the highest wildfire-risk markets, non-renewing or declining new policies outright, most visibly in California. Shopping around, not assuming automatic renewal, tends to matter here.
What would actually reduce this score
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Ashland (79.3% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Ashland's 1,036-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Ashland, see the exposure-zones guide.