Bluffton, MN
Bluffton wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Bluffton lands at the 65th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 169 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Bluffton's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 61st percentile nationally.
Bluffton's building exposure, zone by zone
Direct exposure dominates in Bluffton: 70.4% of its 169 buildings, versus 29.6% Indirect and 0% Minimal. Clearing space around a structure changes the outcome here more than any single building-material swap.
How Bluffton compares
Compare Bluffton's two percentiles: 90th within Minnesota, only 65th nationally — a gap of 25 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Bluffton ranks 11,186 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 26,071 by building count (1 is largest). Within Minnesota alone, it ranks 96 of 914 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Minnesota on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Bluffton's 65th-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.
Hardening a home in Bluffton
Bluffton's 70.4% Direct-exposure share means lot clearing around the structure typically outweighs any single material upgrade here. The home-hardening guide ranks the options for a place shaped like this.
Where Bluffton's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Bluffton's 11,186-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Bluffton's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.