Cottonwood Falls, KS
Cottonwood Falls wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Cottonwood Falls at the 89th national percentile for risk to structures, in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a score built from 600 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Cottonwood Falls at the 85th percentile, close to its 89th-percentile risk score.
Cottonwood Falls's building exposure, zone by zone
Indirect exposure is dominant in Cottonwood Falls (90% of 600 buildings): far enough from burnable vegetation to avoid flame contact, close enough for wind-blown embers. Only 10% sit in the Direct zone.
Cottonwood Falls against the rest of the country
Cottonwood Falls scores 89th nationally and 90th within Kansas — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Cottonwood Falls ranks 3,371 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 15,833 by building count (1 is largest). Within Kansas alone, it ranks 72 of 721 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Kansas on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Cottonwood Falls
Cottonwood Falls's very high rating (89th percentile) puts it among the places where the national carrier-pullback trend is most relevant — not a guarantee of a coverage problem, but a reason to shop rather than assume.
Hardening a home in Cottonwood Falls
Because 90% of Cottonwood Falls's buildings sit in the Indirect zone, sealing the ember pathway (vents, roofing, gutters) is the intervention this page's data actually supports — see the home-hardening guide.
Where Cottonwood Falls's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 600 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Cottonwood Falls. The exposure-zones guide covers what Cottonwood Falls's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.