Creston, IA
Creston, IA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Out of every US place USFS scores, Creston lands at the 47th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 4,314 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 Creston at the 48th percentile, close to its 47th-percentile risk score.
Creston's building exposure, zone by zone
Creston rates 90.2% Minimal exposure against just 9.9% Direct and 0% Indirect — of 4,314 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually.
Creston against the rest of the country
Within Iowa, Creston ranks higher (65th percentile) than it does nationally (47th) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Creston ranks 16,569 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 3,969 by building count (1 is largest). Within Iowa alone, it ranks 353 of 1,017 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Iowa on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Creston
Creston's elevated rating (47th percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
What would actually reduce this score
Creston's 90.2% 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.
Where Creston's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 4,314 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Creston. The exposure-zones guide covers what Creston's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.