Bristow, IA
How exposed is Bristow to wildfire?
USFS scores Bristow at the 18th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally), a figure built from 174 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Bristow at the 17th percentile, close to its 18th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Only 20.7% of Bristow's 174 buildings carry Direct exposure and 0% carry Indirect; the remaining 79.3% are Minimal, which shifts the risk driving this page's score toward the surrounding landscape rather than any one structure.
Where Bristow ranks
There's little gap between Bristow's 18th national percentile and its 29th percentile inside Iowa, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Bristow ranks 25,868 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 25,852 by building count (1 is largest). Within Iowa alone, it ranks 720 of 1,017 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Iowa on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Bristow
At the 18th national percentile, Bristow rates low for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
What would actually reduce this score
With 79.3% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Bristow gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
Where Bristow's figures come from
Bristow's 18th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Bristow's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.