Cedar Rapids, IA
Cedar Rapids wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Cedar Rapids at the 44th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (modestly above the national average for wildfire risk), a figure built from 60,545 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Cedar Rapids at the 45th percentile, close to its 44th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Most of Cedar Rapids's buildings (86.1% of 60,545) fall outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones entirely — that doesn't zero out the score above, it means the risk is regional, not structure-by-structure. At 60,545 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Cedar Rapids compares
Cedar Rapids's 60th-percentile standing inside Iowa outpaces its 44th national percentile — this is a hotter spot than most of its own state, even though the state as a whole runs cooler nationally. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Cedar Rapids ranks 17,704 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 129 by building count (1 is largest). Within Iowa alone, it ranks 408 of 1,017 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Iowa on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
At the 44th national percentile, Cedar Rapids rates elevated 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 Cedar Rapids
Cedar Rapids's 86.1% 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 Cedar Rapids's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 60,545 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Cedar Rapids. The exposure-zones guide covers what Cedar Rapids's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.