Carthage, IN
How exposed is Carthage to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Carthage at the 7th national percentile for risk to structures, among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a score built from 568 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Carthage at the 7th national percentile — 0 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Carthage's buildings actually sit
Carthage rates 78.4% Minimal exposure against just 21.7% Direct and 0% Indirect — of 568 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually.
Carthage against the rest of the country
Compare Carthage's two percentiles: 47th within Indiana, only 7th nationally — a gap of 40 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Carthage ranks 29,185 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 16,280 by building count (1 is largest). Within Indiana alone, it ranks 509 of 967 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Indiana on its state page.
Carthage and the insurance market
Carthage's low rating (7th percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
What would actually reduce this score
Even with 78.4% of Carthage 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.
Where Carthage's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Carthage's 29,185-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Carthage's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.