Benton Heights, MI
Benton Heights, MI's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Out of every US place USFS scores, Benton Heights lands at the 11th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a figure built from its 1,693 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Benton Heights at the 11th national percentile — 0 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Benton Heights's buildings actually sit
USFS puts 57.9% of Benton Heights's 1,693 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 33.4% Direct and 8.7% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
How Benton Heights compares
Compare Benton Heights's two percentiles: 37th within Michigan, only 11th nationally — a gap of 27 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Benton Heights ranks 28,144 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 8,443 by building count (1 is largest). Within Michigan alone, it ranks 467 of 745 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Michigan on its state page.
Benton Heights and the insurance market
At the 11th national percentile, Benton Heights rates low for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
Hardening a home in Benton Heights
Because 57.9% of Benton Heights's buildings sit in the Indirect zone, sealing the ember pathway (vents, roofing, gutters) is the intervention this page's data actually supports — see the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Benton Heights's 11th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Benton Heights, see the exposure-zones guide.