Chippewa Falls, WI
Chippewa Falls, WI's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Chippewa Falls sits at the 23rd percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 5,896 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Chippewa Falls's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 22nd percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
87% of Chippewa Falls's 5,896 buildings sit in USFS's Minimal exposure zone, with only 12.9% rated Direct — risk here comes from regional burn probability more than proximity to burnable vegetation at the structure itself. At 5,896 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Chippewa Falls compares
Chippewa Falls's 42nd-percentile standing inside Wisconsin outpaces its 23rd 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, Chippewa Falls ranks 24,253 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 2,922 by building count (1 is largest). Within Wisconsin alone, it ranks 468 of 808 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Wisconsin on its state page.
Chippewa Falls and the insurance market
At the 23rd national percentile, Chippewa Falls rates moderate 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
Chippewa Falls's 87% 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 Chippewa Falls's 24,253-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Chippewa Falls, see the exposure-zones guide.