Bertha, MN
Bertha, MN's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Bertha sits at the 49th 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 322 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Bertha's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 48th percentile nationally.
Bertha's building exposure, zone by zone
Only 24.5% of Bertha's 322 buildings carry Direct exposure and 0% carry Indirect; the remaining 75.5% are Minimal, which shifts the risk driving this page's score toward the surrounding landscape rather than any one structure.
Where Bertha ranks
Compare Bertha's two percentiles: 73rd within Minnesota, only 49th nationally — a gap of 24 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Bertha ranks 16,102 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 21,032 by building count (1 is largest). Within Minnesota alone, it ranks 250 of 914 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Minnesota on its state page.
Bertha and the insurance market
Bertha's elevated rating (49th percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
What would actually reduce this score
Bertha's 75.5% Minimal-exposure share means structure-level hardening matters less here than it would elsewhere — still worth the low-cost basics, per the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Bertha's 49th-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 Bertha, see the exposure-zones guide.