Bemidji, MN
Bemidji, MN's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Bemidji sits at the 48th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 7,125 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Bemidji's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 46th percentile nationally.
Where Bemidji's buildings actually sit
USFS classifies 61.1% of Bemidji's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 31.3% Direct and 7.6% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one. At 7,125 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Bemidji compares
Within Minnesota, Bemidji ranks higher (71st percentile) than it does nationally (48th) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Bemidji ranks 16,354 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 2,408 by building count (1 is largest). Within Minnesota alone, it ranks 264 of 914 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Minnesota on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Bemidji
Bemidji's elevated wildfire rating (48th 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.
Hardening a home in Bemidji
With 61.1% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Bemidji gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Bemidji's 16,354-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Bemidji, see the exposure-zones guide.