Cascade, IA
Cascade wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Cascade lands at the 36th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a figure built from its 1,172 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Cascade's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 37th percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
USFS puts 67% of Cascade's 1,172 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 13.6% Direct and 19.5% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
Where Cascade ranks
There's little gap between Cascade's 36th national percentile and its 51st percentile inside Iowa, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Cascade ranks 20,259 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 10,814 by building count (1 is largest). Within Iowa alone, it ranks 504 of 1,017 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Iowa on its state page.
Cascade and the insurance market
At the 36th national percentile, Cascade rates moderate for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
Hardening a home in Cascade
Because 67% of Cascade's buildings sit in the Indirect zone, sealing the ember pathway (vents, roofing, gutters) is the intervention this page's data actually supports — see the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Cascade's 36th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Cascade, see the exposure-zones guide.