Clay Center, NE
How exposed is Clay Center to wildfire?
Clay Center sits at the 8th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 608 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Clay Center at the 7th national percentile — 1 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Clay Center's buildings actually sit
Clay Center rates 87.2% Minimal exposure against just 12.8% Direct and 0% Indirect — of 608 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually.
Clay Center against the rest of the country
Clay Center's risk sits at a similar level relative to Nebraska (4th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (8th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Clay Center ranks 29,100 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 15,716 by building count (1 is largest). Within Nebraska alone, it ranks 562 of 583 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Nebraska on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
At the 8th national percentile, Clay Center 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
Clay Center's 87.2% 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
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 608 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Clay Center. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Clay Center, see the exposure-zones guide.