Burns Harbor, IN
How exposed is Burns Harbor to wildfire?
USFS scores Burns Harbor at the 53rd national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (modestly above the national average for wildfire risk), a figure built from 1,043 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 Burns Harbor at the 55th percentile, close to its 53rd-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
USFS classifies 80.4% of Burns Harbor's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 19.7% Direct and 0% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one.
Where Burns Harbor ranks
Compare Burns Harbor's two percentiles: 98th within Indiana, only 53rd nationally — a gap of 45 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Burns Harbor ranks 14,932 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 11,639 by building count (1 is largest). Within Indiana alone, it ranks 20 of 967 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Indiana on its state page.
Burns Harbor and the insurance market
At the 53rd national percentile, Burns Harbor rates elevated 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
Even with 80.4% of Burns Harbor outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones, basic hardening — gutter maintenance, ember-resistant vents — is inexpensive relative to the regional burn-probability risk noted above. Details in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Burns Harbor'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 Burns Harbor, see the exposure-zones guide.