Columbus, MN
Columbus, MN's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Columbus at the 79th national percentile for risk to structures, well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a score built from 2,935 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Columbus at the 69th national percentile — 9 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Columbus's building exposure, zone by zone
Of Columbus's 2,935 counted buildings, 95.2% carry Direct exposure and only 0% carry Minimal — a lopsided split that puts defensible-space clearing ahead of vents or roofing as the intervention worth doing first.
How Columbus compares
Within Minnesota, Columbus ranks higher (97th percentile) than it does nationally (79th) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Columbus ranks 6,711 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 5,537 by building count (1 is largest). Within Minnesota alone, it ranks 26 of 914 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Minnesota on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Columbus
At the 79th percentile nationally, Columbus carries the high rating that has pushed some carriers to limit new business in similarly-scored places elsewhere in the country. Worth comparing quotes rather than assuming last year's renewal terms still apply.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Columbus's 95.2% Direct-exposure share means lot clearing around the structure typically outweighs any single material upgrade here. The home-hardening guide ranks the options for a place shaped like this.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Columbus's 6,711-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Columbus, see the exposure-zones guide.