Bristol, WI
How exposed is Bristol to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Bristol at the 37th national percentile for risk to structures, close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a score built from 3,957 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Bristol at the 37th national percentile — 0 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Bristol's buildings actually sit
3,957 buildings are counted in Bristol, and 59.3% of them sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone — flame contact, not just ember cast, is the live possibility for most of them, against 31.8% rated Minimal.
Where Bristol ranks
Compare Bristol's two percentiles: 87th within Wisconsin, only 37th nationally — a gap of 50 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Bristol ranks 19,809 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 4,283 by building count (1 is largest). Within Wisconsin alone, it ranks 101 of 808 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Wisconsin on its state page.
Bristol and the insurance market
Bristol's moderate wildfire rating (37th 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 Bristol
Bristol's 59.3% 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 Bristol's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 3,957 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Bristol. The exposure-zones guide covers what Bristol's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.