Chaffee, MO
How exposed is Chaffee to wildfire?
Chaffee's 1,573 buildings earn a 28th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Chaffee at the 30th percentile, close to its 28th-percentile risk score.
Where Chaffee's buildings actually sit
Most of Chaffee's buildings (88.6%) sit in the Indirect zone, where wind-blown embers rather than flame front are the mechanism USFS is scoring — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing are the interventions this pattern favors, more than defensible space alone.
Where Chaffee ranks
Chaffee's 28th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 9th ranking inside Missouri does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 19 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Chaffee ranks 22,758 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 8,873 by building count (1 is largest). Within Missouri alone, it ranks 969 of 1,062 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Missouri on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
At the 28th national percentile, Chaffee rates moderate for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
What would actually reduce this score
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Chaffee (88.6% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
Where Chaffee's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Chaffee's 22,758-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Chaffee's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.