Bejou, MN
How exposed is Bejou to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Bejou at the 68th national percentile for risk to structures, well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a score built from 94 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Bejou's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 64th percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
USFS puts 38.3% of Bejou's 94 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 27.7% Direct and 34% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
How Bejou compares
Within Minnesota, Bejou ranks higher (92nd percentile) than it does nationally (68th) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Bejou ranks 10,212 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 29,313 by building count (1 is largest). Within Minnesota alone, it ranks 74 of 914 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Minnesota on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
At the 68th percentile nationally, Bejou carries the high rating that has pushed some carriers to limit new business in similarly-scored places elsewhere in the country. Worth comparing quotes rather than assuming last year's renewal terms still apply.
Hardening a home in Bejou
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Bejou (38.3% 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 Bejou's 10,212-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Bejou, see the exposure-zones guide.