Chapin, IA
How exposed is Chapin to wildfire?
USFS scores Chapin at the 14th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally), a figure built from 86 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Chapin at the 13th national percentile — 1 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Only 22.1% of Chapin's 86 buildings carry Direct exposure and 0% carry Indirect; the remaining 77.9% are Minimal, which shifts the risk driving this page's score toward the surrounding landscape rather than any one structure.
Chapin against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Chapin's 14th national percentile and its 24th percentile inside Iowa, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Chapin ranks 27,161 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 29,646 by building count (1 is largest). Within Iowa alone, it ranks 777 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 14th national percentile, Chapin rates low for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
With 77.9% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Chapin gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
Where Chapin's figures come from
Chapin's 14th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Chapin's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.