Charleston, MO
Charleston wildfire risk explained
Charleston's 2,206 buildings earn a 4th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Charleston's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 4th percentile nationally.
Where Charleston's buildings actually sit
USFS classifies 86.5% of Charleston's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 13.6% Direct and 0% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one.
How Charleston compares
There's little gap between Charleston's 4th national percentile and its 4th percentile inside Missouri, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Charleston ranks 30,168 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 6,922 by building count (1 is largest). Within Missouri alone, it ranks 1,018 of 1,062 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Missouri on its state page.
Charleston and the insurance market
Charleston's low rating (4th percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Charleston's 86.5% 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.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Charleston's 30,168-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Charleston, see the exposure-zones guide.