Caspian, MI
How exposed is Caspian to wildfire?
USFS scores Caspian at the 19th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally), a figure built from 734 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Caspian at the 19th national percentile — 1 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
734 buildings are counted in Caspian, and 67.6% of them are Indirect exposure — ember-driven risk rather than the 32.4% in Direct exposure or the 0% rated Minimal.
Where Caspian ranks
Compare Caspian's two percentiles: 62nd within Michigan, only 19th nationally — a gap of 44 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Caspian ranks 25,689 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 14,286 by building count (1 is largest). Within Michigan alone, it ranks 282 of 745 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Michigan on its state page.
Caspian and the insurance market
Caspian's low wildfire rating (19th percentile) isn't the kind of score driving the carrier pullback making news in the highest-risk Western markets — but a standard homeowners quote is still worth comparing on its own terms.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Caspian's 67.6% Indirect-exposure share points at embers, not flame contact, as the main pathway — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing rank ahead of defensible space here. Detail in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Caspian's 25,689-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Caspian, see the exposure-zones guide.