Bowlus, MN
Bowlus wildfire risk explained
Bowlus sits at the 53rd 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 260 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Bowlus's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 54th percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Bowlus rates 65.8% Minimal exposure against just 34.2% Direct and 0% Indirect — of 260 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually.
How Bowlus compares
Compare Bowlus's two percentiles: 78th within Minnesota, only 53rd nationally — a gap of 25 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Bowlus ranks 14,938 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 22,826 by building count (1 is largest). Within Minnesota alone, it ranks 205 of 914 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Minnesota on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Bowlus
Bowlus's elevated wildfire rating (53rd 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.
What would actually reduce this score
With 65.8% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Bowlus 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
Bowlus's 53rd-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 Bowlus, see the exposure-zones guide.