Cape Girardeau, MO
Cape Girardeau, MO's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Cape Girardeau sits at the 33rd percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 15,005 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Cape Girardeau at the 35th percentile, close to its 33rd-percentile risk score.
Cape Girardeau's building exposure, zone by zone
67.1% of Cape Girardeau's 15,005 buildings sit in USFS's Minimal exposure zone, with only 13.8% rated Direct — risk here comes from regional burn probability more than proximity to burnable vegetation at the structure itself. At 15,005 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Cape Girardeau against the rest of the country
Cape Girardeau's 33rd national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 10th ranking inside Missouri does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 23 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Cape Girardeau ranks 21,050 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 987 by building count (1 is largest). Within Missouri alone, it ranks 954 of 1,062 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Missouri on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
At the 33rd national percentile, Cape Girardeau rates moderate 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
Cape Girardeau's 67.1% Minimal-exposure share means structure-level hardening matters less here than it would elsewhere — still worth the low-cost basics, per the home-hardening guide.
Where Cape Girardeau's figures come from
Cape Girardeau's 33rd-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 Cape Girardeau's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.