Bedford, IA
Bedford, IA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS scores Bedford at the 64th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (well above the national norm for wildfire risk), a figure built from 1,045 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Bedford at the 64th national percentile — 0 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Bedford's building exposure, zone by zone
Of Bedford's 1,045 counted buildings, 34.9% carry Direct exposure and only 32.4% carry Minimal — a lopsided split that puts defensible-space clearing ahead of vents or roofing as the intervention worth doing first.
Where Bedford ranks
Bedford's 88th-percentile standing inside Iowa outpaces its 64th national percentile — this is a hotter spot than most of its own state, even though the state as a whole runs cooler nationally. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Bedford ranks 11,435 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 11,623 by building count (1 is largest). Within Iowa alone, it ranks 127 of 1,017 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Iowa on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Bedford
Bedford's 64th-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 Bedford
With 34.9% of Bedford in Direct exposure, defensible-space clearing and ember-resistant construction (vents, Class-A roofing) address the exposure this page's own numbers describe, not a generic checklist. See the home-hardening guide.
Where Bedford's figures come from
Bedford's 64th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Bedford's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.