Cave, MO
How exposed is Cave to wildfire?
Cave's 17 buildings earn a 58th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Cave at the 61st national percentile — 3 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Cave's buildings actually sit
17 buildings are counted in Cave, and 100% of them sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone — flame contact, not just ember cast, is the live possibility for most of them, against 0% rated Minimal. This is a small settlement by building count — 17 total — so these shares describe a handful of structures, not a statistical average across thousands.
Where Cave ranks
There's little gap between Cave's 58th national percentile and its 50th percentile inside Missouri, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Cave ranks 13,215 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 31,476 by building count (1 is largest). Within Missouri alone, it ranks 529 of 1,062 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Missouri on its state page.
Cave and the insurance market
Cave's elevated wildfire rating (58th 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.
What would actually reduce this score
Because Direct exposure dominates in Cave (100%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 17 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Cave. At 17 buildings, Cave is close to the size where USFS's data gets thin — the data-quality guide explains why 517 places nationally get no score at all.