Belle Plaine, IA
Belle Plaine wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Belle Plaine lands at the 79th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 1,745 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 Belle Plaine at the 80th percentile, close to its 79th-percentile risk score.
Where Belle Plaine's buildings actually sit
USFS puts 73% of Belle Plaine's 1,745 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 8.9% Direct and 18.1% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
How Belle Plaine compares
Belle Plaine's 99th-percentile standing inside Iowa outpaces its 79th 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, Belle Plaine ranks 6,521 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 8,243 by building count (1 is largest). Within Iowa alone, it ranks 12 of 1,017 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Iowa on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Belle Plaine's 79th-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.
What would actually reduce this score
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Belle Plaine (73% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
Where Belle Plaine's figures come from
Belle Plaine's 79th-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 Belle Plaine's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.