Clare, IA
How exposed is Clare to wildfire?
USFS scores Clare at the 4th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally), a figure built from 143 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Clare at the 4th national percentile — 0 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Clare's buildings actually sit
USFS classifies 88.8% of Clare's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 11.2% Direct and 0% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one.
Where Clare ranks
Clare's risk sits at a similar level relative to Iowa (8th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (4th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Clare ranks 30,288 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 27,152 by building count (1 is largest). Within Iowa alone, it ranks 939 of 1,017 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Iowa on its state page.
Clare and the insurance market
At the 4th national percentile, Clare rates low 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
Clare's 88.8% 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 Clare's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 143 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Clare. The exposure-zones guide covers what Clare's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.