Clear Lake, MN
Clear Lake wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Clear Lake lands at the 39th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a figure built from its 333 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Clear Lake at the 39th percentile, close to its 39th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Clear Lake rates 84.7% Minimal exposure against just 15.3% Direct and 0% Indirect — of 333 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually.
How Clear Lake compares
Clear Lake's risk sits at a similar level relative to Minnesota (52nd percentile statewide) as it does nationally (39th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Clear Lake ranks 19,254 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 20,734 by building count (1 is largest). Within Minnesota alone, it ranks 436 of 914 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Minnesota on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Clear Lake's moderate wildfire rating (39th percentile) isn't the kind of score driving the carrier pullback making news in the highest-risk Western markets — but a standard homeowners quote is still worth comparing on its own terms.
What would actually reduce this score
Even with 84.7% of Clear Lake outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones, basic hardening — gutter maintenance, ember-resistant vents — is inexpensive relative to the regional burn-probability risk noted above. Details in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 333 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Clear Lake. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Clear Lake, see the exposure-zones guide.