Bel-Ridge, MO
How exposed is Bel-Ridge to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Bel-Ridge lands at the 42nd percentile for wildfire risk to structures — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 1,073 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Bel-Ridge at the 47th percentile, close to its 42nd-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Only 1.7% of Bel-Ridge's 1,073 buildings carry Direct exposure and 0% carry Indirect; the remaining 98.3% are Minimal, which shifts the risk driving this page's score toward the surrounding landscape rather than any one structure.
How Bel-Ridge compares
Bel-Ridge's 42nd national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 18th ranking inside Missouri does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 25 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Bel-Ridge ranks 18,155 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 11,446 by building count (1 is largest). Within Missouri alone, it ranks 874 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
Bel-Ridge's elevated wildfire rating (42nd percentile) isn't the kind of score driving the carrier pullback making news in the highest-risk Western markets — but a standard homeowners quote is still worth comparing on its own terms.
What would actually reduce this score
Even with 98.3% of Bel-Ridge 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
Bel-Ridge's 42nd-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Bel-Ridge, see the exposure-zones guide.