Balsam Lake, WI
How exposed is Balsam Lake to wildfire?
Balsam Lake's 934 buildings earn a 29th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Balsam Lake's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 29th percentile nationally.
Balsam Lake's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS classifies 65.2% of Balsam Lake's buildings as Direct exposure, higher than its 28.8% Indirect share and far above its 6% Minimal share — a profile where 609 structures sit close enough to vegetation that lot clearing matters most.
How Balsam Lake compares
Within Wisconsin, Balsam Lake ranks higher (61st percentile) than it does nationally (29th) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Balsam Lake ranks 22,455 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 12,438 by building count (1 is largest). Within Wisconsin alone, it ranks 313 of 808 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Wisconsin on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Balsam Lake
At the 29th national percentile, Balsam Lake rates moderate for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Balsam Lake's 65.2% Direct-exposure share means lot clearing around the structure typically outweighs any single material upgrade here. The home-hardening guide ranks the options for a place shaped like this.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Balsam Lake's 22,455-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Balsam Lake, see the exposure-zones guide.