Columbus, NE
Columbus, NE's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Out of every US place USFS scores, Columbus lands at the 52nd percentile for wildfire risk to structures — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 10,661 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Columbus at the 47th national percentile — 5 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Columbus's building exposure, zone by zone
Columbus rates 70.1% Minimal exposure against just 4.4% Direct and 25.5% Indirect — of 10,661 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually. At 10,661 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Columbus compares
There's little gap between Columbus's 52nd national percentile and its 39th percentile inside Nebraska, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Columbus ranks 15,134 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,494 by building count (1 is largest). Within Nebraska alone, it ranks 357 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 52nd national percentile, Columbus rates elevated 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
With 70.1% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Columbus gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
Where Columbus's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 10,661 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Columbus. The exposure-zones guide covers what Columbus's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.