Dorchester, WI
How exposed is Dorchester to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Dorchester at the 5th national percentile for risk to structures, among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a score built from 579 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Dorchester at the 5th national percentile — 0 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
USFS classifies 77% of Dorchester's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 23% Direct and 0% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one.
How Dorchester compares
There's little gap between Dorchester's 5th national percentile and its 1st percentile inside Wisconsin, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Dorchester ranks 30,086 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 16,122 by building count (1 is largest). Within Wisconsin alone, it ranks 801 of 808 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Wisconsin on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Dorchester
Dorchester's low wildfire rating (5th percentile) isn't the kind of score driving the carrier pullback making news in the highest-risk Western markets — but a standard homeowners quote is still worth comparing on its own terms.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Even with 77% of Dorchester outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones, basic hardening — gutter maintenance, ember-resistant vents — is inexpensive relative to the regional burn-probability risk noted above. Details in the home-hardening guide.
Where Dorchester's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 579 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Dorchester. The exposure-zones guide covers what Dorchester's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.