Decatur, NE
How exposed is Decatur to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Decatur lands at the 89th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a figure built from its 459 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Decatur at the 87th national percentile — 2 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
USFS puts 67.3% of Decatur's 459 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 30.5% Direct and 2.2% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
Where Decatur ranks
Decatur scores 89th nationally and 97th within Nebraska — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Decatur ranks 3,437 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 18,080 by building count (1 is largest). Within Nebraska alone, it ranks 17 of 583 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Nebraska on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Decatur
Decatur's 89th-percentile, very high rating is the kind of score behind a broader national pattern: insurers pulling back from the highest wildfire-risk markets, non-renewing or declining new policies outright, most visibly in California. Shopping around, not assuming automatic renewal, tends to matter here.
What would actually reduce this score
Decatur's 67.3% Indirect-exposure share points at embers, not flame contact, as the main pathway — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing rank ahead of defensible space here. Detail in the home-hardening guide.
Where Decatur's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Decatur's 3,437-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Decatur's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.