Aurora, MO
Aurora, MO's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Aurora at the 68th national percentile for risk to structures, well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a score built from 4,004 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Aurora's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 69th percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
USFS classifies 83% of Aurora's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 17% Direct and 0% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one.
How Aurora compares
There's little gap between Aurora's 68th national percentile and its 77th percentile inside Missouri, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Aurora ranks 10,151 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 4,240 by building count (1 is largest). Within Missouri alone, it ranks 246 of 1,062 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Missouri on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Aurora's 68th-percentile, 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.
Hardening a home in Aurora
Even with 83% of Aurora 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.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 4,004 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Aurora. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Aurora, see the exposure-zones guide.